


Not all heroes wear capes (some are big sisters)

by AutumnHobbit



Category: Shazam (2019), Shazam (Comics)
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Angst, Canon-Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, No Incest, No Slash, dorky Clark Kent is my Jam
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-03-29 09:50:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 42,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19017469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AutumnHobbit/pseuds/AutumnHobbit
Summary: Billy’s never had a mom and dad. Okay, that’s one thing.He’s never really had a big sister before, either.___Or, a fic that expands a little on Billy and Mary’s relationship throughout the movie and afterwards, with a heavy dose of the Shazamily along the way.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Idk why but I really like the idea of Billy and Mary actually getting closer and caring about each other. Maybe it’s partially because they’re biological siblings in the comics (although really that’s mostly irrelevant here), I dunno. But I like it so I’m gonna try to write it. Here goes nothing.
> 
> Some of these are gonna be missing scene-esque things taking place during the movie, and some’ll be after.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Billy and Freddy try to sneak back in the house and aren’t as subtle as they hope

So, skipping school winds up being kind of risky business. It’s not quite as risky, though, as him and Freddy trying to sneak back into the house past dark after a long day of superhero experimentation. Even with Captain Sparklefingers. Actually, maybe even worse with Captain Sparklefingers.

“There is no way,” Billy said flatly, staring up at the drainpipe that ran somewhat close to their bedroom window. 

“Couldn’t you just, you know.” Freddy waggled his fingers dramatically. “Fly up there?”

“Yeah, if I wanna strike the back of the house with lightning and send everyone running,” Billy retorted quietly. The neighbor’s dog was yipping about their presence, and it was making him nervous. He wasn’t a huge fan of dogs. 

Freddy shrugged. “It’s worked so far.” He shivered a bit, tugging his jacket on tighter with his crutch-hand. Billy shook his head and tried to ignore the guilt that was creeping up again. It seemed to be doing that a lot lately. 

He studied the house again and found a window that was not only right above an eave with a sloping roof that ran all the way down to just a bit above arms-length, but was even open a crack. Bingo. He ran quietly up the porch steps and across the deck, and swung up to grab hold of the roof. 

“What are you doing?” Freddy hissed, following him at a considerably slower pace. 

“Climbing up,” Billy gritted through his teeth, cautiously clambering up the steep grade. 

“That’s Mary’s room!” Freddy whisper-snapped.

“Maybe she’s not in it.”

“How’re you going to get out of her room without anybody seeing you? What—“ Freddy paused, shoulders hunching, defeated. “What about me?”

“I’ll let you in when I get in. Make up something about an alien sighting close call or whatever,” Billy said down, pausing outside the window. He glanced in. He didn’t see anyone. 

Freddy huffed down below. “Fine.” He said, a bit shortly. “Hurry up. It’s cold out here.” 

“Right,” Billy muttered. “Here goes nothing.” He slid his fingertips cautiously under the edge of the window and lifted.

It squeaked. Loudly. Billy winced the entire time he was opening it. He guessed Freddy was probably doing the same and preparing himself for death (or grounding). But it was open now, so he might as well climb in.

But it was also smaller than he thought it was. And with how steep the roof was, there was no way he could pull his legs up to slide in feet-first. So, he had to pull himself in headfirst. 

He landed in a heap on the hardwood and grunted when he clacked his teeth together. Ow. His feet were still stuck in the window. 

He managed to push himself up on his hands, and froze. Mary was sitting on her bed, phone in one hand, pencil in the other. She had books and papers spread all over the place, and a pair of glasses pulled down her nose in a very grandma-esque manner. And she was staring straight at him with the dullest expression he’d ever seen outside of himself. 

He swallowed. “Uh…”

Footsteps came past the door and slowed. “Hey Mary, what was that crashing noise?”

Without breaking eye contact, Mary casually called, “Knocked my desk chair over while I was opening the window, Mom. Sorry.” 

“That’s okay sweetie, just making sure.” The footsteps went further down the hall. Billy watched under the door until they were gone, then whipped his head back toward Mary. 

She sighed, pushed her glasses back up onto her nose, dropped her phone and pencil on top of the bedspread, and vaulted off. “Let’s get you out of the window, why don’t we?” She said, and carefully grabbed him under the armpits. Billy, startled, unhooked his feet from the windowsill, and it was enough to tug him loose and set him down on the floor, upright this time. Mary let go of him and got back up to lean out the window, squinting. “Freddy,” she called tiredly. “Where are you down there?”

A pause. “Ah, there you are. Okay, I’ll come let you in in a minute.” She pulled back in and squeakily slid the window shut and locked it. She glanced back at Billy and sighed. “You guys need to quit doing that.”

Billy’s stomach dropped. “Doing what?”

Mary fixed him with a tough look. “Skipping school.” 

Whew. That was a relief. She didn’t suspect….but it was still a little irritating. Billy had heard his whole life how important stupid school was, but it never worked on him. And it was easy for her to say. “Of course you’d think so,” he muttered sourly. “Easy to think when you’re smart.”

Mary stared at him. “That didn’t happen overnight,” she said quietly. “And it didn’t happen naturally, either. I worked hard to get good enough to apply for anywhere.” 

Billy swallowed hard, uncomfortable. He really didn’t know much about her, and gee would he feel like an asshole if she had some sort of disability and he was mocking her because he was jealous. It’d be just as bad as mocking Freddy for not winning a sack race. 

“I uh.” He said. He shrugged in the vague direction of her face. “I didn’t know you wore glasses.”

She looked confused, then blinked. “Oh. I don’t.” She took them off. “No wonder I could barely see Freddy. They’re reading glasses.” She stuck them in a snap case beside her bed. “I better go let him in. It’s cold out there.” 

“Yeah,” Billy mumbled. Mary nodded at him and went for the door. She had her hand on the knob when Billy said, “Wait!”

She turned her head towards him quizzically. 

Billy gulped. “How—I mean. What’re you going to tell them about why he was out there?”

Mary cocked her head to the side for a moment, like she was thinking and studying him at the same time. Then she shrugged. “I dunno,” she said. She opened the door. “Probably a possible alien sighting or something.”

She disappeared down the hallway, leaving the door open, and leaving Billy standing there dumbstruck. Until eventually, he grinned. 

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> side-note: can I say how much I love that Mary didn’t think Shazam!Billy was hot and treat him all weird. I was 100% expecting the trope where a family member doesn’t know you’re a super and flirts with you, but they didn’t do that despite the bridal-style-catch-rescue and I am very gratified.

Billy stalked off from the dinner table alright, leaving Freddy hanging awkwardly, but he didn’t manage to get more than halfway up the stairs before he stopped and listened, because they were talking again, and he had to assume it was about him.

“Freddy,” Rosa said softly, sounding disappointed.

“I’m sorry he ran off, okay?” Freddy said sourly. A fork clinked against a plate. “It’s not my fault I keep stepping on landmines; he won’t tell us what bugs him!”

Billy swallowed.

“No, but that doesn’t excuse us from apologizing when we hurt him, does it?” Victor said calmly.

“I’ll tell him sorry later, alright?” Freddy muttered, barely loud enough that Billy could hear it. “Give him a chance to ‘cool off’ and all that.”

There was a pause, and Billy could almost imagine Rosa and Victor exchanging concerned glances. Eventually Victor spoke up again. “What do you think about the superhero, Mary? You haven’t said much.”

Billy’s heart skipped a beat.

“Well that’s just it,” Mary said thoughtfully. “I actually saw him earlier.”

Excitement instantly exploded downstairs. Billy could hear thunks as kids leapt up against the dinner table. “You _saw_ him!” Eugene yelled, and Pedro curiously asked “Is he as ripped as he looks on tv? How do you think he does it.”

He didn’t hear Darla or Freddy saying anything, and he prayed that it stayed that way and Darla kept stuffing herself with mashed potatoes.

“What happened, Mary?” Rosa interjected over the chaos.

“I was crossing the street and he flew in from nowhere and grabbed me and pulled me out of the way of a snowplow.” Mary said distantly, like even she couldn’t quite believe it. The excitement rapidly shifted to horror.

“Oh honey, are you alright?” A chair was pushed back and Rosa’s voice moved across the room.

“Yeah, I think so, thanks to him.” Mary said. “I was just...I’ve been distracted, you know? I should’ve been more careful, but. At least he was there.”

“And thank God he was,” Victor said, with feeling, and Billy felt very strange inside.

Little footsteps ran over. “I’m glad you’re okay, Mary.” Darla. Probably hugging her, of course.

“Me too, Darla.”

“Was he nice?” Eugene asked, almost solemnly.

“Yeah,” Mary said after a moment. “But I’m worried about him, too.”

“Why?” Rosa asked.

“He just. He said some things that sounded...very familiar and not very healthy at all.” Billy winced. “I’m worried because a superhero could accidentally do a lot of damage to other people if they think like he sounded like he does…but I also. I also just feel sorry for him. Nobody who talks like that is in a good place. I hope he can figure things out and get better.”

Billy had the strangest idea that Freddy was probably staring directly towards the upstairs bedroom where he thought Billy was during this conversation. He leaned his head back against the wall and exhaled quietly.

He couldn’t quite wrap his head around it, but...he had been scared, earlier. When that happened, it had taken him a good hour to calm down. He’d played it cool when he was talking to her—and he’d wanted to be helpful, really he had, when he was trying to offer her advice—but his heart had been hammering in his chest and he was still faintly shaky every time he thought about it.

It was a stupid fluke. Maybe Mary wouldn’t have crossed the street, or would’ve seen it coming. Maybe it wouldn’t have even been there where it could’ve hit her, and the driver probably wouldn’t have even seen her.

But maybe it would’ve, and what if he hadn’t had any powers and been there to stop it?

He didn’t like to think about it. Especially because he knew now that he would care.


	3. Chapter 3

When all was said and done and the Sins were locked back up in the cave, and the police and the news were at the carnival, the six of them said ‘Shazam’ together and were ordinary kids again. A good thing, too, because the cops were about losing their minds hearing bystanders excitedly (or vehemently, in Santa’s case) yell about how there were some gremlin-looking monsters and brightly-colored superheroes who beat them and then mysteriously disappeared. 

“Well. Uh. That was fun,” Mary said, her voice shaking a bit like she was seconds from laughing. 

“That was awesome!” Eugene yelled. 

“It was okay,” Pedro shrugged, but even he couldn’t quite stifle a smile.

“How’re we gonna get home?” Darla asked. “Momma’s gonna be upset.”

“Oh shit.” Freddy said, and Mary gasped, “Freddy! Darla’s listening!”

“Uh, maybe we could call an uber?” Billy suggested.

They looked around at each other. “I don’t have any money,” Mary said slowly. 

Billy could’ve smacked himself. He’d had money, but of course he hadn’t thought to try and keep any of it. 

“Maybe we can ask some of the police officers for help,” Mary said, and took Darla by the hand. “Come on, everyone.”

They all fell in behind her, Billy a bit reluctantly. Freddy saw his face and started to ask, but apparently thought better of it and just hurried after Mary. Billy, shamefully, hid behind Freddy, taking up the rear with his cane. 

Mary led them right up to one of the police cars. “Excuse me, sir?” She asked. 

“Yes ma’am, I promise we’re trying to find those hooligan monsters as quickly as possible,” an older male voice responded tiredly. “Now, if you can please move along so we can do our jobs—“

“No, I’m sorry, we uh.” Mary interrupted gently. “My siblings and I need to get in touch with our foster parents and find a way to get home.” 

The officer got out of his car, and scanned the group. Billy tried to duck, but he was a bit taller than Freddy, and the instant the officer saw him, Billy winced. Oh  _ great.  _

“Oh, look who it is,” the officer said exasperatedly, and all five of the other kids swiveled their heads to look back at an abashed Billy. “What sort of trouble did you drag everyone into this time, lunch thief?”

“What—“ Freddy said.

“It’s a long story,” Billy mumbled.

“Oh, yeah, this guy has a history,” the officer droned on. “He broke into a store and locked me and my partner in so he could screw around in our squad car. For the fifth time. And the little dipshit stole my lunch. Child Protective’s given chance after chance to that kid, you’d think after round three they’d send him to juvie—“

“Hey!” Mary said sharply, and Billy stared at her. He’d never heard her raise her voice once at home. She set Darla down and placed her hand in Pedro’s, and circled around to Billy. She stepped behind him and put a protective hand on his shoulder. “Your thief is my little foster brother, who’s had a very traumatic upbringing and never had a stable home. Lots of people would’ve done worse to you if they’d had you at their mercy than use your laptop and steal your lunch. And frankly, disdain for a neglected minor doesn’t suit law enforcement if you ask me.” 

The officer looked like his lower jaw might fall off, and Billy felt similarly. So did the other kids, looking at them. “Billy, apologize to the officer,” Mary told him quietly, but firmly.

Billy glanced up very tightly. “Sorry I stole your lunch, and inconvenienced you,” he said quietly. “It wasn’t worth it anyway.” 

Mary nodded sympathetically at his statement, and glanced up. “Now, you apologize to him.”

The officer stammered wordlessly a moment, before eventually staring at Mary and saying automatically, like an afterthought, “Yeah, I’m sorry I aired that out in front of everyone, kid. No harm done, I guess. Although I was looking forward to that Philly cheese.” 

“Well, now that we’ve got that out of the way,” Mary said pleasantly, “could we please call our parents?” 

“Sure, kid. I’ll just...getcha a phone.” The officer hesitantly stepped off, like he was waiting for permission. Mary stepped back, and Billy glanced up at her. “Sorry about that, Billy,” she said sadly. “If I’d known he’d go after you like that, I’d have just walked home.” 

“It’s fine,” Billy said, his mind still stuck on ‘my little foster brother.’ “I deserve it, anyway.”

Mary glanced down. “No you don’t. You made a mistake, Billy.”

He stared at his feet. “A lot of mistakes.” He glanced up at the others, who were all watching him worriedly, now. “I haven’t been very nice to you guys, and you’ve been nothing but nice to me. I’m sorry I didn’t give you a chance.”

Freddy glanced at Darla, who glanced at Pedro and Eugene, who glanced at Mary, and all of them at Billy.

“That’s alright,” Eugene said.

“We understand.” Pedro said solemnly.

“We forgive you,” Freddy said, and he meant it.

“We love you anyway!” Darla exclaimed, and went for the tackle hug. Billy caught her this time, and laughed to cover up how tight his throat felt. He glanced up at Mary a little awkwardly, blushing, and she smiled warmly down at him.

He’d never had a mom—and it stung to think about, but he realized now he hadn’t—or a dad before. Okay, that was one thing.

If he was Mary’s little foster brother, that made her his big sister. 

He’d never had a big sister before, either. 

As they were standing there, Billy heard a child excitedly talking, and glanced over his shoulder to see the little girl from earlier walking off with her dad, the stuffed tiger in her arms. 

“I got a tiger!” She yelled excitedly at all the bystanders, waving it in the air. “The red hero gave it to me!” 

He smiled to himself. 

—

Rosa and Victor came so fast the tires squealed when they stopped, and the front passenger door was thrown open only seconds later. Rosa came flying out and grabbed whoever was closest in a hug—it turned out being a startled Pedro and Freddy—and moved on. “Oh ninôs, are you all alright? Billy, sweetie—“ and she broke off to hug him. “How did you get back here?”

“We found him,” Mary said quickly. “I’m sorry we left without saying anything, Rosa.”

Victor shut the door and rounded the front of the van quickly. Billy winced, expecting anger—which he, at least, probably deserved—but Victor was nearly the same as Rosa, checking over each of the kids in a near-panic and only relaxing when he saw them unharmed. “Billy,” he said, and Billy stepped forward, Darla appearing from nowhere to cling to his jacket. 

“Yes, sir.” Billy said, eyes downcast.

“Did you find your mother?” Victor asked. His voice was even, but gentle.

“Yes,” Billy whispered.  _ That _ got a reaction, though it was mostly a startled hum among the kids, and worried whispers.

“How did…” Victor himself sounded hesitant. “How did it go?”

Billy swallowed hard, tears burning his eyes again just thinking about it. He shook his head hard, throat too tight to speak.

“Billy…?” Rosa asked gently, worried. 

“She...she left me on  _ purpose,” _ Billy cried, and Eugene gasped. “She saw where I was and she just…she just left! She just decided I’d be better off with someone else, and she’s living with some  _ jackass _ who’s  _ hurting her—“ _ Darla gasped at the curse, and Billy felt bad but couldn’t stop himself. He grasped at his hair with both hands, and hid his face as he cried. 

“Oh, honey,” Rosa said, and she was crying, too. She got on her knees and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and he didn’t have the fight to pull away because he was sobbing, now. He felt more and more of the kids latching on, Darla was crying, and hell, it even sounded like  _ Freddy _ was crying, and that just made him cry harder. 

Last of all, he felt bigger arms squeezing the lot of them. “Oh, Billy,” Victor said softly. “I’m so sorry.” There was a pause, with lots of sniffling, and even Victor sounded hoarse when he added, “I know what it’s like for your mom to give you up.” 

Billy gulped shakily. He ducked his face against Rosa’s shoulder and nodded. 

“Please don’t run off again, Billy,” Mary sniffled. “We’re all here for you.”

“We’re not gonna give up,” Victor added, but with a touch of humor continued, “although it would be easier if we didn’t have to chase you all over Philadelphia.” 

“Okay. I won’t.” Billy said, barely audibly. 

The little huddle went on comfortably quiet a little longer, before Victor said, “Well! Now that that’s settled, how bout we get out of the cold and head home, alright?” 

A few shaky laughs echoed his statement, and slowly, reluctantly, everyone pulled back. Rosa let him go last, and gently patted his head as she smiled at him. Billy smiled back. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where the family gets home after all the fighting Sivana nonsense and Billy and Freddy have a heart-to-heart.

The drive home was a mix between chaotic and exhausted, and Victor and Rosa took a detour to get pizza, which was another grand excitement. They then made a beeline back to the house, and everyone piled out in a hurry. Pizza boxes were set on the counter, kids dashed back and forth throwing their jackets and hats and gloves back in their rooms and running back downstairs to eat off a stack of paper plates that appeared from somewhere. Billy was absolutely famished, and he could tell looking around that the other kids were, too, judging by the veritable stacks of slices even on Darla’s plate. 

After dinner had been scarfed down without so much as leftovers, it was hard for them not to turn immediately to the state of the house. It  _ looked _ like it had been ransacked, and Billy’s heart was in his throat remembering Sivana  _ in their house, _ standing between him and the other kids, huddled on their couch with a hulking monster looming over them. 

“Looks like a tornado went off in here,” Rosa said, and despite the guilt Billy almost choked at the mixed-up metaphors. He heard Freddy barely stifle a squeak, too. 

“Maybe somebody broke in while the kids were gone?” Victor said, taking in the mess of clutter knocked on the floor and the furniture askew. “Nothing much seems to be missing, though.” 

He turned back to the kids, and shrugged. “Oh well. Many hands make light work. We’ll have this cleaned up—and decorated—in a jiffy.” 

And they did. Oh, it was 11:00 before they were done, but the trash was picked up and bagged and hauled out to the can, all the decorative items that were still intact got picked up and put back where they were before, books were replaced on the shelves, furniture was straightened, the Jesus statue replaced on the table from where Envy had knocked it down spitefully with its tail, the tree was fixed up and switched on, and sparkly garlands were added in various places about the room.

It looked about as nice a mix of dim and shiny as Billy had ever seen a Christmas tree, let alone a living room, look, and when everyone sort of wore out at once and wound up scattered across the living room, he did the same as the others and just stared at the tree with sleepy eyes, sprawled across the arm of the couch. Freddy was next to him, chin propped on his arm propped on his cane and nodding off. Darla was already dozing against Mary, who was sitting on the floor with her back to the coffee table. Eugene and Pedro were both slumped at chairs at the table in the dining room, and Rosa and Victor were just trudging wearily from the kitchen where they’d finished tidying. 

“What a day,” Rosa exhaled as she dropped into one of the armchairs. 

“You can say that again,” Victor sighed exhaustedly. He glanced up and his face softened at the sight of Darla asleep. “But thank God we’re all together and safely under one roof again, where we should be.”

“Amen,” Rosa said fervently, and Freddy kind of unconsciously echoed it while half-asleep. 

“I’d say it’s bedtime for all of us,” Rosa smiled softly, and got up to crouch beside Mary. Gently, the two of them got Darla up into Rosa’s arms, and she glanced around at the base of the staircase. “Freddy?” She said softly, when she found he was the only other one nearly out already.

He jarred a bit and raised his head, and nearly fell over because his cane slipped, but Billy caught his elbow just in time and glanced up at Rosa. “I’ve got him,” he told her.

She nodded and beamed at him. “Alright.”

Billy stood, and Freddy got up a bit unsteadily, and the two of them headed for the stairs, Eugene and Pedro trailing behind them. Billy tried to give Freddy enough space to maneuver his cane, but also stayed close enough he could grab him if he stumbled. Thankfully, he tapped along and made it to the top without a problem.

The two of them made a beeline for their room and stumbled in, and Billy firmly shut the door with a click behind them even as Freddy flicked the lights on. It was suddenly very quiet. 

“What a hell-day,” Freddy breathed raggedly.

“You’re telling me,” Billy nodded, and slumped back against the door, staring at the ceiling. He pushed off after a moment. “I’m so beat I’m not sure I wanna bother changing into pajamas.”

“I know I’m not gonna,” Freddy muttered almost darkly, and Billy felt nervousness churning in his stomach. He had sort of left Freddy in an awkward spot before the real shit hit the fan...was he still upset?

And actually…

“What happened, Freddy?” He asked, and Freddy stiffened, his back turned, over at their dresser. “I...I didn’t see you when I came back here after...where were you?”

“I’ll tell you where I was,” Freddy said, and oh shit he  _ did _ sound mad. “I was wandering around the mall looking for  _ you.” _

Billy’s stomach dropped. Freddy had been at the mall?  _ Alone? _ He hadn’t even  _ seen _ him— “What? Why were you—“

“You know I was scared to death when I saw the blooming  _ hole in the ceiling _ through  _ three floors?” _ Freddy bit out. “I was scared to death he’d really hurt you, and I couldn’t find you anywhere.”

Billy suddenly wondered exactly how Sivana had gotten his hands on the other kids, and his throat closed up. “Freddy,” he said, voice breaking despite himself. “How did...what did…”

“And guess what? When you wear the same dumb hat and jacket all the time and you’re on tv yelling at a dude in red spandex, it’s really not all that hard to put two and two together, apparently.” Freddy laughed, borderline hysterically, but it wasn’t his usual laugh and it sounded closer to a subdued scream than anything. “And then I.” He dropped against the dresser and hid his face under his arm. 

“Freddy,” Billy was across the room.

“I—I  _ told him,” _ Freddy gasped. “I had to, I  _ had _ to tell him, but I shouldn’t’ve, and he was gonna kill Darla and I led him here—“ 

“Jesus, Freddy,” Billy said hysterically, and hugged him before he could think about it. He expected Freddy to pull away or lash out, but he didn’t, and clung to Billy’s jacket instantly, shaking. “You couldn’t stand a chance—I couldn’t as a  _ superhero, _ there’s no  _ way _ you could’ve, and you shouldn’t have to in the first place. I’m  _ sorry. _ If I had been around to protect you—“ 

“Then he would’ve kept b-beating you to a pulp.” Freddy mumbled, a bit calmer. 

“Still, I’m sorry,” Billy told him. “I’m sorry for a lot of things.”

“Stop,” Freddy muttered. “I already heard this earlier, remember?”

“Yeah, but it bears saying again,” Billy said, only a touch sheepishly. “Look, I’ve kept you at arms length by being a real dick, and that wasn’t right. You’re—“ he shook his head, with a nervous laugh. “You’re the closest thing to a best friend I’ve honestly ever had.”

Freddy took that in silently, and there was a pause before he mumbled, “So...you  _ do _ actually like me?”

“What—“ Billy sputtered. “Of course!”

“Okay okay, I’m just checking,” Freddy said, hands up in surrender. “After awhile of you being dickish I wasn’t sure if it was you or just, you know, me being annoying. Cause I am, you know. Annoying. Or I come off as annoying, I guess, just cause I’m eager to please—?”

“Now, enough of that,” Billy said sternly. “It’s not cause you’re completely unlikeable that I was a jerk to you. We’ll leave it at that.” 

Freddy glanced at him slyly. “So, I’m not  _ completely _ unlikeable, then, is what you’re saying.”

“Oh, shut up.” Billy shoved him lightly, and Freddy grinned. 

“Now that we’re all friends again,” Billy said, barely stifling a yawn. “I dunno about you, but I’m ready for bed.” 

“Definitely,” Freddy said, and the two of them made their way over to the bunk bed. Billy hopped on the ladder and clambered up, and Freddy collapsed on his bed, cane still in hand. 

“G’night, Freddy,” Billy mumbled, already half-asleep

“G’night, Billy,” came Freddy’s muffled reply, equally sleepy.

When Billy drifted off moments later, it was with the image of the sparkling Christmas tree firmly in mind. He had no dreams. 


	5. Chapter 5

Billy woke up the next morning to a dark, quiet house, and the alarm clock on Freddy’s desk said 6:48 in wavery red numbers. Billy sighed very quietly and shifted carefully, trying to avoid waking Freddy.

He stared at the close ceiling. He was still jittery from yesterday’s fright, and everything felt not quite real. And to compound that feeling, it was Christmas Eve.  

Billy had spent Christmas all over the place throughout his life. He’d spent Christmas in a group home, Christmas in a police office, Christmas locked up in his room in a foster home, Christmas under a bridge or off the side of a road. He’d never spent it in a foster house he’d almost consider a home, and certainly not with a family this big. And Christian. And close.

He had no idea what the day would bring. And that made him nervous. 

He lay there, wrapped up in his comforter, for a long time, and dozed on and off until it started getting faintly light outside. Finally, he got sick of it and sat up, and very quietly climbed down the ladder. It squeaked, of course, but Freddy’s breathing never hitched, so he guessed either he really  _ was _ still asleep, or he was great at faking. Either of which sounded entirely possible. Billy peered at him when he got to the floor, only saw the dark shape of the back of his head, and shrugged, stepping smoothly across the floor in his bare feet. 

He opened the door very slowly and peered out. The hallway was empty, but he could hear faint conversation and soft clanks downstairs. And he smelled a lot of  _ something— _ he wasn’t sure exactly  _ what, _ but it smelled  _ good.  _

He softly shut their door behind him and headed for the stairs. 

When he got down to the living room, he knew it was Rosa and Victor in the kitchen. Something was sizzling and the sink was running and something was being chopped. He stepped up almost hesitantly and poked his head in. 

Rosa was standing by the stove, tossing something in a pot that hissed and crackled, and Victor was over by the counter, chopping up a huge cut of meat with a cleaver. Rosa was the first to notice him, and exclaimed, “Good morning, Billy, mijo! Did you sleep alright?”

“Uh huh,” Billy nodded awkwardly. He made himself pull off the wall and cross the threshold into the kitchen. With all the mayhem the day before, he’d almost forgotten he’d run away. There would definitely be some emotional fallout from  _ that.  _ “Um, what’re you making?”

“Churros,” Rosa told him, picking a few up one by one with tongs out of the pot and setting them in a waiting tray. “We’ll have sweets for breakfast with all the other fixings on Christmas Eve.”

“They smell good,” Billy commented, not sure what else to say. 

“Of course they do! It’s fried bread, how bad can it be?” Rosa giggled, and cupped her hand towards him, telling him to come closer. He did, a bit stiffly. “Here, try one. One of these ones, though. The others are still blazing hot.” 

He obediently picked up one of the pieces and broke off a bit. Rosa watched while he tried it, eagerly, like she was being judged on Chopped or something. It was kind of endearing on her, though. 

And the churro was  _ good. _

The moment she realized he liked it, she beamed. “I know, right?” He grinned, too, and she pulled a smaller pot forward. “Here. Try it with the  _ chocolado.” _ She patted his arm lightly and then turned away towards the fridge. 

The chocolate made it even better. Billy dunked a churro in as far as it would go and ate half of it in a few seconds.

Victor set down another huge cut of meat with a thump on the counter, and Billy half-jumped. Victor leaned down and counseled. “Try to put a couple minutes between those things. Not because we don’t have enough,” he amended when Billy started to put the next one he’d grabbed back, “but because they’re super rich, and addictive, and you’ll eat the entire plateful, and regret it. Ask me how I know.” He winked and grabbed his cleaver back up. 

Billy blinked for a moment, then ate the next piece slowly. When he was done, he made himself dust his hands off over the trash can and wander out of the kitchen and into the living room. He flopped down onto the couch and expected to be alone, but when he heard rustling he leaned over and saw Mary rummaging through the dvd cabinet.

“Hey,” he said.

Mary glanced back at him quickly. “Oh, hi!” She said. “Merry Christmas Eve,” she added as she ducked back into the cabinet and kept searching. 

“Whatcha doing?” Billy asked after a moment, because he couldn’t help himself.

“Every year on Christmas Eve we have a bunch of family favorite films running all day, so whenever you want a break from cooking or cleaning or whatever you can just come in and sit down with the others in front of a good movie,” she said, pulling a case out and stacking it on a pile beside her. “I’m just picking some out for the broadcast schedule.” 

She glanced back at him over her shoulder, half her face obscured by her long hair, rumpled and messy. “What’s your favorite movie?”

“Uh,” Billy said, because he really had no idea. He hadn’t gone to movies that often in foster care, and he’d snuck into movies before, but never attached hugely to any of them. “Paddington?”

“Oh, that’s a good one,” Mary said, checking the shelf. “I don’t remember if we have it yet.”

Billy was silent. It was one of the only times he’d seen a movie with foster parents. They’d been nice, like Victor and Rosa. The Murphys, that’s what their name had been. The woman’s name was Rebecca, and he couldn’t even remember the man’s. He’d lived with them for four months. He hadn’t wanted it to be that long, but he’d been forced. He’d broken his arm jumping off a trestle, and it had happened right before he got placed with the Murphys. He’d stayed to keep going to the doctor. He’d seen other kids and other homeless with crooked limbs from not getting treated, and he didn’t want that at all. 

The Murphys had tried really hard to get him to open up. They’d been kind, and patient. They took things slow, didn’t force him to do anything he didn’t want to. They took him to see Paddington four months in like he was four instead of ten, and it was embarrassing as could be.

But he had enjoyed it. A lot. Too much. And while he was sitting there, staring at the screen in the dark, Mrs. Murphy had tried to take his hand.

Billy had stiffened. And he didn’t reciprocate, and waited until she awkwardly pulled back. 

He ran away again the next week. Because he’d realized he couldn’t let himself get attached anywhere if there was ever going to be any hope of his finding his mom. And they hadn’t wanted him back when the cops found him and sent him back through the system again. 

“If you like Paddingon,” Mary said, snapping him back to the present. “I bet you’ll like this one.” 

She got up and popped the dvd in the drive and went to sit down on the arm of the couch. Eugene wandered down next, Darla only a few moments behind him. She promptly perched on Mary’s lap. 

“Billy, would you like to help me make conchas?” Rosa called from the kitchen.

“Sure,” he said, and got up. 

He helped Rosa by handing her ingredients and measuring cups, and then helped her roll and cut the dough, and put it on the trays. In the meantime, Victor finished the scrambled eggs with pico de gallo and the kids wandered in and out to load up paper plates and go back into the living room. When the cookies were in the oven with the timer set, Billy went back into the living room. 

When he sat down on the couch again, it was a blustery night full of snow in the Hundred Acre Wood, and Winnie the Pooh was saying, “Poor Tigger. All alone in the cold. He must be very sad. And perhaps lost. And maybe even a bit...” Pooh’s stomach growled. “Hungry.” 

Uncomfortable, Billy glance around the room. Mary was on her phone, Darla was watching the movie fixedly, Eugene was alternating between the tv and his handheld, and Pedro was watching tiredly. Freddy was there, too; smushed into the corner of the couch beside Pedro and looking very sleepy, hair all over the place.

Pooh opened his door and Roo shoved his way in through the snowy wind. “You gotta help me find Tigger! It’s all my fault!” He grabbed hold of Pooh’s shirt. “He never would’ve left if it wasn’t cause of me! I didn’t mean to make him feel bad, I just wanted him t-to be my big brother!”

Pooh made a dismayed face, and Roo went on, “We gotta go find him, we just gotta!”

“And so we will,” Pooh said determinedly. 

Billy swallowed hard. 

He didn’t leave, though. He watched the rest of the movie with the others. At some point Darla got up from beside Mary and went and climbed up next to Billy instead. Mary glanced up when she left, but when she saw where she was going, her face softened and she went back to her phone. 

When it was over, Billy got up again and wandered into the kitchen, and wound up tasked with chopping vegetables with Victor—and getting a lesson in it, since he had no clue how to dice onions or tomatoes. Mary stuck her head in, dressed in a sweater and jeans, and called, “Mom? I’m gonna run to the store real quick for last minute stuff. Need anything?”

“More flour, if you don’t mind, sweetheart!” Rosa called over her shoulder from the sink. “Gracias! Be back in time for church!”

“Yes’m,” Mary said, and left. 

When Billy made his way back into the living room again, and Pedro got up to go take his place helping in the kitchen, a different movie was on, and Freddy was still sacked out on the corner of the couch. Billy sat down next to him. The two of them watched the movie in silence before Billy muttered. “Sooo. Church?”

“Yeah,” Freddy said. “They go Sundays but we don’t have to unless we want to. Same with Christmas.”

“What’s it like?” Billy asked. He’d been to church before once or twice, but denominational differences had been pretty obvious pretty quickly. 

Freddy shrugged. “A lot of decorations, a lot of sappy preaching, a lot of people being extra nice and wearing the fanciest outfit they’ve got.”

Huh. Well. Billy wasn’t sure what to make of that. He turned back to the movie, which he hadn’t seen the start of. Freddy went back to watching, too. Until it cut to a scene of a courthouse, and then Freddy jumped—not an exaggeration—to his feet and hobbled quickly into the kitchen.

Billy blinked. He glanced down at Eugene, the only other kid still in the room. Eugene had watched Freddy go, and now he looked up at Billy with a solemn expression.

“He can’t watch this scene,” Eugene told him. “It makes him too upset.”

Billy glanced back up, and saw the main character kid—Roger, that was his name—excitedly telling his dad about how the Angels were getting so much better they actually had a shot at winning the Penant...and his dad, without a hint of attachment or regret, turning around with a dull expression, for the judge to announce that this was a termination of parental rights hearing. 

Billy felt something sharp knot up in his stomach, and when Roger inevitably broke down in tears and clung to his foster mother, he understood why Freddy couldn’t watch it even while his own eyes burned.

Thankfully, the movie ended much happier than that part, and Freddy came back at some point for the adoption reveal and the group hug. By that point, it was getting to the mid-afternoon, and Rosa ducked out of the kitchen to remind them that anyone who wanted to go to church needed to get ready to go.

Billy was conflicted. He didn’t necessarily like the idea of going to a crowded church service so soon after so much heavy emotional stuff...but he did want to make the most of having turned over a new leaf with the Vasquezes and the other kids. So he went upstairs after the initial rush and let himself into his bedroom. Freddy was already in his khakis and was going through the polo shirts in his closet.

“Whaddya think, blue or Christmas red,” he asked disinterestedly.

“Blue.” Billy said. When Freddy glanced at him, he shrugged. “Who cares what season it is, it suits you.”

Freddy grinned slightly at that. He tugged his shirt off his hanger and tsked. “What are we going to do with you, you hopeless...wandering land-mammal.”

Billy blinked. “What do you mean?”

“I mean for clothes,” Freddy tugged his shirt over his head and set to buttoning the collar. “I don’t know if you have anything aside from jeans in there.”

Billy shrugged, and started poking through the closet himself. “I have at least one pair of dress pants.”

“Oh, whoop-dee-doo.” Freddy sat down on the desk chair and pushed himself back and forth with his foot. “I wish I had an ugly Christmas sweater to put you in. That’d be precious.” 

Billy rolled his eyes and pulled his pair of black slacks out of the closet. He scanned over his shirts again and picked a red button-down that had appeared at some point in the last few weeks. “Well, blue’s your color,” he said. “Red’s mine.” 

When they’d both finished putting on the one nice pair of leather shoes they each had, they made their way back downstairs. The other kids were lounging around on the couches, watching another movie, all in their dressy clothes. Mary wasn’t back yet, Billy guessed, because he didn’t see her. Victor and Rosa must have gone up to get ready. 

Darla hopped up and ran over to them. “Billy! Freddy! Look at my dress!” She seized her red-and-white plaid skirt in both hands and curtsied daintily. “Don’t I look beautiful!”

“You sure do, Darla!” Freddy told her, and Billy, with only a quick elbow to the side, echoed, “Definitely,” as seriously as he could manage. Darla beamed, then ran back to the coffee table and grabbed a brush and some ribbons. “I still need my hair done—Freddy, could you please help? I can’t reach.”

“Sure,” Freddy said easily, and made his way over to the couch. Darla sat down on the floor in between the couch and coffee table and handed back her brush and ribbons, and Freddy set the ribbons over his leg and set to work with the brush, very gently. 

Eugene and Pedro were playing tic tac toe in amiable silence, both dressed up nice, too. The tv was still on, but no one seemed to be paying rapt attention to it. Billy sat down in one of the chairs littered about the room and watched in idle curiosity. 

Some time later, he was distracted from the six-fingered man running off and Inigo ramming against the door by another door opening and closing, and then Mary was rushing by with her arms laden down with shopping bags, her cheeks bright red and cold wafting off her and snowflakes all over her hair and jacket. She paused for a split second and took in everyone in the living room, and then called a, “Hi all! Be right back!” behind her as she jogged quickly up the stairs and disappeared. 

A couple minutes after she disappeared, Rosa and Victor appeared heading down the stairs. “Alright, 7 o’clock,” Victor said, checking his watch.

“Everyone here?” Rosa asked as she stepped off the last step. “Where’s Mary?”

“She got back a couple minutes ago,” Freddy said, face screwed up in concentration as he tied the final ribbon on Darla’s pigtail. “She’s getting ready.”

Rosa clasped her hands in front of her and almost looked to be blinking back tears, Billy noted with alarm. “Oh, you all look so lovely,” she said, with feeling.

Darla, as soon as Freddy had finished, sprang up and ran over to Rosa. “Look at my hair,” she told her, tossing her head back and forth. The ribbons held. “Freddy did it for me. Didn’t he do a good job?”

“He did a great job,” Victor told Freddy, who blushed. “And you look adorable, Darla.” 

Rosa had pulled her phone out and snapped at least five photos of Darla, and was going around the room doing the same with the others. “Eugene, Pedro, smile for me, please?” A flash, and then she moved on to Freddy. “Billy, how bout I get one of the two of you? If you want—“

“Sure,” Billy said quickly, and was glad that the momentary doubtful look left both their faces. He dropped on the couch beside Freddy and the two of them leaned in and grinned goofily for the camera. 

“That is great, wonderful; oh mi ijos,” she cupped a hand over her mouth, gave them a thumbs up, and hurried over to show her spoils to Victor. The two of them pulled back but smiled a little shakily, unsettled by her happiness, almost.

“Let’s get everyone before we go, okay?” Victor called, and obediently a bunch of people started getting up and moving in confused but rowdy chaos towards the tree. “Back here, Pedro—Darla, Eugene, up front so we can see you please…where’s Mary—?”

“Right here,” she called breathlessly, and jumped off the last step onto lace-up boots in a nearly floor-length skirt. 

Billy kind of couldn’t believe it when he saw her. It wasn’t like Mary was bad-looking—hell, none of the other kids were, despite their different builds ad mixed-up features—but there was something about seeing them dressed up that drove it home, and Mary was no exception. In a light, flowery-printed white dress with purple and red, fluttery sleeves and a long train, the boots, with her hair up—she looked like a princess, like a fairy-tale princess in one of the books his mom used to read him, one of the only faint memories he’d had of actually seeing something and knowing she was there with him, even if he couldn’t remember the story or the words. 

She hurried over and ducked behind Billy and Freddy, and wrapped her arms around both their shoulders and leaned down and smiled over their heads. Billy smiled, too, and didn’t feel like it was an impossible task for once; if anything, he worried his smile would be a little too dazed and half-drunk looking. 

Rosa and Victor must have snapped enough to satisfy their albums, because they quit taking them and immediately started cooing over the results, and the kids broke apart but stayed in a mish-mashed little group around the Christmas tree. Mary turned Freddy and Billy around and beamed at them. “You two look so handsome,” she said, and straightened Billy’s collar where it was a little crooked in the back, and brushed down an unruly spot of Freddy’s hair like she couldn’t help herself.

And Billy couldn’t either. “You look beautiful,” he blurted, and instantly flushed. That was both embarrassing  _ and _ sounded creepy, and Freddy kind of shot an incredulous look at him.

But Mary just smiled more, if possible, till the edges of her eyes crinkled. “Thank you,” she said, and meant it. She didn’t seem creeped out. 

___

 

Everyone grabbed jackets and hats and gloves and processed out to the van, piled in, buckled in, and they drove over to the church. The parking lot was pretty packed, but they managed to find a place a few rows in—being an hour-and-a-half early helped. Rosa and Victor took a selfie with the whole van and all the kids in it before they got unloaded and started the long trek up toward the church. 

“If we’re here this early, what’re we gonna do the whole time?” Billy whispered to Freddy halfway through the parking lot. 

Freddy shrugged, out-of-breath from the cold and the long walk. “It goes faster than you think,” he said. “Plus they’ll be singing carols and stuff, so that’ll help distract you.”

Billy took his word for it, but he stayed in the back of the cluster and likely stared bug-eyed at everyone and everything as they wandered up the ramp to the front door, shuffled their way in through the crowd and the smiling greeters offering bulletins and exclamations of “Merry Christmas,” through the entryway and into the church proper. The ceiling inside was wood paneling, dark, that sloped down to white trim and cream walls covered in strings of bright lights. The lighting inside was mostly from candles and Christmas lights, so it was dim and warm. It was so warm, in fact, that Billy pulled off his jacket right away and held it clasped awkwardly in front of him as Victor and Rosa led the way to one of the pews. 

Like Freddy said, there was an organ playing in the back and a choir that seemed to be a mix of children and adults was singing The First Noel. It stirred an indefinite feeling in Billy’s stomach and chest that he didn’t usually associate with Christmas. Usually Christmas was sort of faced down with exhaustion in his life. But this was hardly a normal year.

He trailed into the pew after everybody else and wound up near the edge, with just Rosa on his side near the aisle. He must have been glancing around the altar a lot, because Rosa leaned over and quietly asked, “Have you been to church a lot before?”

He shook his head, and she gave him a soft look and pointed out a few things and what they were. He nodded along and kept looking around even when Rosa had gone back to praying silently with her head bowed and eyes closed.

He looked sharply to his right when he heard scuffling coming his way in the pew, and saw Darla scampering carefully up towards him and Rosa. “I wanna go give my present to baby Jesus,” she told Rosa, solemnly. “Can I?”

“Sure, honey,” Rosa told her, and glanced at Billy. “Why don’t you take Billy with you?”

Billy swallowed, but Darla immediately grabbed his hand and looked eager, so he got up and let her drag him by the hand up to the platform around the altar. At one corner was a Nativity scene, lit up underneath the wooden structure. Kindly-looking sheep and shepherds were gathered around. Billy stopped right in front, and Darla let go of his hand to duck up under the roof of the miniature stable and lay a little poinsettia in front of the manger. She backed up and took Billy’s hand again. “I can’t pick flowers at Christmastime, so Rosa buys me a fake one to give him.”

Billy looked seriously, for the first time, at the three figures in the center of the scene; the man with the curly beard and the large hands, positioned protectively above the two smaller figures below him. The woman, small and gentle, with eyes fixed on her child like there was nothing else that mattered as much to her in the world. And the child himself, lying in a rough wooden trough and staring up with his tiny hands lifted to touch the world that was watching him like a last hope. 

“I’m sure he loves it anyway,” he told Darla.

“I know he does,” Darla said, with a shy little smile. The two of them went back to their pew. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whaddya know I sort of made myself cry writing a christmas chapter. who’s surprised. 
> 
> okay so I’ve got a _bunch_ of notes for this chapter:
> 
> •I’m guessing probably some people will recognize some of the movies, but in order the ones mentioned are: The Tigger Movie, Angels In The Outfield, and The Princess Bride. And the Angels in the Outfield thing is pure projection; I grew up with that movie and even though my family is relatively intact, at age 21 I _cannot_ stand to watch the courthouse scene. It makes me too upset. Here’s a link to it if anyone’s curious: https://youtu.be/4ZB6T3RsTw4  
> Might be _kinda_ triggering for a foster kid, but also might sort of be cathartic and comforting to others depending on the person of course. They’d probably warn any newcomers if possible. And the ending scene is beautiful enough to sort of heal the pain.  
> •It was actually kind of a fun topic to me when watching the movie to try and guess the Vasquez’s denomination. I’m assuming the writer and directors purposefully left it vague because it’s in the background. I’m Catholic, so I know that protestants don’t usually have statues of the Sacred Heart of Jesus floating around the house (statues are generally kind of an evangelical no no), but it was probably a lack of understanding on the part of the props department and whatnot. However, the blessing they use in the movie definitely has a more Protestant feel to it. I also leave it up to interpretation what denomination they are. Maybe they’re one of the somewhat more traditional/orthodox protestant denominations. I ain’t picking sides as this is just a story for fun.
> 
> Anyways, hope you all enjoy this chapter and thank you for the lovely comments!


	6. Chapter 6

Billy did not particularly want to get up early on Christmas morning. He was forced. Because at 5:43, Freddy woke spontaneously, sprang upright on his bed and screeched, “Holy  _ shit _ it’s Christmas!” so loudly that  _ Billy _ sat bolt upright and promptly bashed his head against the ceiling. And fell back bonelessly on the bed. 

Freddy was scrambling out of the bottom bunk, and the mattress was squeaking and he was rambling excitedly the whole way. Billy groaned, eyes sandy, and opened them to slits, his forehead still throbbing. Last night had been good, but it had been  _ late, _ and they hadn’t gotten back to the house till past eleven, after all was said and done and church was over and they’d gotten through talking to a bunch of other church-goers—or Rosa and Victor had, anyway. A couple of other kids came and hung out with them. Billy didn’t know them, but Freddy and Eugene had not even bothered greeting them but had just fallen into conversation automatically, so he guessed they must have been kids of some other family at church. The drive home had even been kind of beautiful, through the city at night while it was all lit up with Christmas decorations, the van filled with a mix of soft, wide-awake chattering and quiet snoring. 

Freddy knocked up against the railing of the top bunk with his cane. “Billy! Hey, Billy! Get your ass up, it’s Christmas morning!”

Against his better judgement, Billy painstakingly rolled over and blinked heavily at the alarm clock. When it came into focus, he groaned. 

“Won’t Rosa and Victor be mad we woke them up so early?” He mumbled.

“No,” Freddy said, like it was the dumbest thing he’d ever heard. “It’s Christmas, this is par for the course! It’s almost  _ not _ Christmas if you  _ don’t _ get up stupid early and attack the presents!” 

With that, he spun on his heel and tapped off towards the door. 

Billy dragged his hand up to scrub at his eyes and moaned. He was so  _ tired, _ and he’d been comfortable and enjoying being asleep—

But yeah. It was Christmas. And Freddy was going.  _ He _ clearly wasn’t scared of getting yelled at. Explained a lot of his personality, actually.

Maybe it was a good thing. Billy dragged himself up and cautiously swung one foot down the ladder. Throughout all that excitement, Freddy had not thought to turn on a light. So Billy was crawling down the ladder blindly, clinging to it and feeling around with his foot as he went. He finally made it to the floor and staggered towards the door, which was still open a crack. 

Unsurprisingly, it was pitch black in the hallway. Billy stepped out anyway and made his way with a hand against the wall, taking care to tread quietly. It was impossible to be quiet down the stairs, though, because they creaked.

When he stepped down into the living room, he caught his breath. He couldn’t quite help it. 

The Christmas tree was on, and sparkling bright, stuffed with ornaments and garlands and everything else you could think of. And there was a pile of presents around it. Freddy looked dwarfed crouched beneath it. He was sitting with his cane on his lap, preoccupied with shaking a rather large package next to his ear. “It’s a hot-rod, isn’t it. It’s gotta be.”

He paused, and stared at Billy. “Hey,” he said, and Billy froze at the horrifyingly eager, devious expression on his face. “Powerboy is an adult.”

“Aaaand—?” Billy asked, somewhat frightened of the answer.

“So he can  _ drive,” _ Freddy said, slapping the carpet with one hand and leaning forward eagerly. 

“No.” Billy said, sitting down on the couch.

“Aw, come on.” Freddy looked dejected for a split second—long enough to get Billy feeling guilty—when that devilish grinch look came over his face again and he grinned.  _ “I _ could drive.” 

_ “Freddy,” _ he groaned, but thankfully they were interrupted by thundering on the stairs, and then Pedro was pelting into the living room at a slightly intimidating speed. He stopped quickly, though, and dropped next to Freddy on the floor. “You think it’s an Xbox?” He nodded toward the package.

“I hadn’t even thought of that!” Freddy said excitedly, and the two of them dove into examining the presents and discussing what they could possibly be. 

Billy uncomfortably leaned back and glanced at some of the packages. None of them seemed to be addressed, ‘from Santa’—except the majority of Darla’s, and maybe one for everyone else. Otherwise, most of them read, ‘from Rosa and Victor, to’ insert child here. But when his eyes drifted over a package labeled, ‘from Eugene to Darla,’ he was suddenly panicked. Because he hadn’t even been thinking about Christmas presents for anyone in the household. He hadn’t expected to be here long enough for it to matter, and buying foster families presents wasn’t his thing. 

But that had been before. And now things had changed. And he hadn’t gotten anything for anyone. Not for Freddy, who’d helped him so much through this whole mess. Not for Darla, who’d accepted and loved him right away, not for Mary, not for Eugene, who’d found his mom for him in a few minutes where he’d failed for years. Not for Pedro, and not for Victor and Rosa, who’d given him a chance when no one else would. 

Darla eventually stumbled down the stairs, tugging Mary by the hand behind her. She scrubbed at her eyes tiredly, but when she caught sight of the tree she squealed and ran forward, dragging an alarmed Mary behind her. “Mary! Look! Look! Billy, look at all the presents!” 

“I saw them!” He told her, and winced as soon as her attention was off him. 

“Careful, Darla!” Mary warned her, a bit alarmed when she nearly banged into something. “No glasses,” she told Billy, as an aside.

Billy blinked. Oh yeah. He’d thought Darla looked slightly different. She wasn’t wearing her glasses. 

Darla didn’t seem too concerned, and only lightly banged into Freddy before she dropped down on the carpet beside him and excitedly asked, “Anything for me?” 

“Uhhh….yeah!” Freddy grabbed one. “From Billy!”

Billy froze. 

Darla grabbed the little package and looked up at Billy shyly. “Uh, since you’re here, do you mind if I open it?”

“...No..?” Billy said, heart racing.

For such a tiny, otherwise sweet girl, Darla was a vicious present unwrapper. The tearing was shrill and loud and incessant, and pieces were flying everywhere. Billy and the others had to bat away wrapping paper until Darla finally got the present open, and she screeched a wordless, joyful noise before she scrambled up.  _ “Look! _ It’s a matching set of little fluffy clip-ons!”

She ran over to Billy and handed him a smiling little fluff-ball with googly eyes and a clip attached to it. It was red. Darla had one that was purple. 

“We can clip them on our backpack zippers so everybody knows I’m your little sister and you’re my big brother!” She threw herself at him and he barely caught her, stunned. 

He hadn’t bought that, quite obviously. Which meant somebody else had. Victor and Rosa? They’d bought presents for the other kids that they’d think were from him, so he wouldn’t be put in an awkward spot? 

Wow. Holy wow. Holy stinking moly. He had really misjudged this place. And these people. 

Darla, after squeezing him enthusiastically, pulled back and said, “I’m gonna go put this on my backpack right now!” She charged off for the stairs, ran into the first one and nearly tripped headfirst into the wall, caught herself, and ran up none-too-quietly. 

“That’s a sweet present,” Mary said.

Billy swallowed uncomfortably. “I didn’t buy it,” he said. Lying didn’t feel right.

Mary glanced over, unconcerned. “Will you clip yours on your backpack?”

“Uh...of course?” Billy said, confused.

Mary nodded. “Then you’ll make her very happy. It doesn’t matter whether you thought of it or bought it yourself.”

Darla came running back downstairs, and heavier footsteps were coming down behind her, a bit slower-paced. Eugene stumbled down behind Darla, and then Victor and Rosa were bringing up the rear. “Feliz Navidad, everyone!” Rosa said, voice scratchy from being woken up, but bright all the same.

“Rosa! Look at Billy’s fluffy thing! I’ve got one, too! Mine’s purple!” Darla scrambled up on Billy’s lap and grabbed his hand still holding the fluffy thing to display it to Rosa. 

“And what a fine fluffy thing it is,” Rosa agreed, winking at Billy. 

“Can I open one now?” Freddy asked eagerly, and Victor nodded. Freddy grabbed for one of the boxes and ripped it open. Darla clambered over onto the couch and grabbed another package and passed it to Billy. “This one’s for you,” she told him. 

He looked at the label. It was from Freddy. He glanced down at where aforementioned foster brother was triumphantly brandishing a Wonder Woman replica whip, and back to the package. 

He tore the wrapping paper. It was a crisp, new book. The Exhaustive Official Guidebook To Superheroes by Jimmy Olson, to be precise. 

He pulled it out and looked at it. When he glanced away from the cover, he saw Freddy playing with the wrapping paper on another package hesitantly.

“It’s one of my favorite books,” he told Billy. “I learned a lot from it, so I figured...maybe we could share?”

Billy considered that. It was pretty obvious from Freddy’s expression that he was halfway assuming he’d wind up irrelevant by sharing where he got his expertise from.

“I think it’ll be fun reading it,” Billy said. “But it won’t beat your delivery.” 

Freddy got what he meant and smiled, just a bit. Thankfully, they were both distracted with new presents. 

Within an hour, the lot of them had dug their way through the pile, leaving only a few straggling presents left. Freddy had an official Batman book written by a Gotham city native that detailed everything anyone had on Batman in the cryptid sense. Eugene had fingerless gloves and several new games. Darla had the most adorable stuffed toys money could buy, new sparkly snowboots, and more. Mary had a new coat, Pedro had nice new athletic clothes. Billy had all sorts of gifts from the others, from the guidebook to an old, souped-up customized handheld of Eugene’s, convenience store gift cards from Pedro, and an ‘I’m the big brother’ tee shirt from Darla, even though Pedro was technically a little older than he was. 

“Here’s one we missed,” Rosa said, checking under the tree. “It’s for Billy.”

She handed it to him. Everyone else was a bit distracted with comparing and admiring presents. Billy took the box from Rosa. It was small and relatively light. It was from Mary.

Billy tore the wrapping and pulled the flap open on the loosely secured box—and caught his breath sharply. 

A small, stuffed tiger sat inside. Dimly, he recognized it was specifically-branded after Tigger—Mary had to have gotten the idea from the movie, she  _ couldn’t _ have  _ known— _ but it didn’t stop him from almost hyperventilating as the little plushie blurred dangerously from tears.

He looked up and found Mary across the room. She was examining her nails, looking uncertain. 

“I hope you like it,” she said, “I know you’re a little old for a stuffed toy—“ 

He jumped up and ran over and hugged her. Hard enough, he realized belatedly, that a tiny ‘oof’ escaped her when she caught him. He could feel everyone staring at him and he didn’t care. He was clutching the tiny toy against his chest with one hand, clinging to her with the other. “Thank you,” he whispered to her. “Thank you,  _ thank you.” _

Mary was slightly startled, he could tell. But she hugged him back, just as tight, even ran a hand up and down the back of his pajama top. “You’re welcome,” she told him, and meant it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know BvS executed Jimmy Olson point-blank, but I reject it.


	7. Chapter 7

Billy was used to being alone. He didn’t necessarily enjoy it or anything, but it was a fact of life, like the sun coming up. Like moving on was a fact of life.

He had only been at the Vasquez’s for a couple weeks and it was already starting to feel off.

That is, the  _ household _ wasn’t feeling off; the days after Christmas were lazy and relaxed in an easygoing way, everyone hung out and played collectively with new presents with only a few fights and upsets over things—it was unlike anything he’d ever seen before.

That was part of the problem. It was him that felt off. 

Because, he didn’t dislike any of his foster siblings. He liked Darla and Eugene and Pedro and Freddy and Mary. And he even liked Rosa and Victor.

But he was stuck, in the house, all day, with all seven of them. And it was a bit of culture shock, that much was sure.

He was used to having freedom. To be spontaneous, to just decide to go to the mall himself or even just to walk around aimlessly. Now he couldn’t do anything without someone asking what he was doing and why, and where he was going and when he’d be back. He was beginning to worry it would drive him crazy.

Which was why he was so relieved when Rosa seemed to have noticed, because she gave him a brown paper sack lunch and said, “Why don’t you take the bus a couple stops and go take Mary her lunch and say hi?”

So, he was sitting on a bus with a sack lunch set carefully on his lap, looking out the windows and enjoying how no one was talking to him. Working retail, Mary had gone right back to work only a day after Christmas, and though school was still out between Christmas and New Year’s, she was working. Longer hours than were probably in her job description, or legal.

The bus stopped, and Billy got up and headed off, moving with the small crowd of people making their way down the steps. He stuffed Mary’s sack lunch into his backpack to keep it safe. Just in time, too, because an instant after he did so, he ran square into somebody’s chest and fell backwards on the sidewalk. Thank God he’d stuffed the lunchsack into a side pocket. 

“Oh, geez!” A noticeably midwestern voice exclaimed, and someone was hurriedly pulling him up and setting him on his feet and dusting him off. “I’m sure sorry about that, kid, I didn’t see you there, at all.”

Billy blinked. The guy he’d knocked into was sorta-tall and had black hair that resembled Freddy’s but better cared for. He wore thick glasses and was dressed in a fairly nice button up and navy Dickies. He was also standing in a news-camera set-up.

“Nah, I’m sorry for running into you, Mister,” he said, waving a hand dismissively and forcing an apologetic smile—to hide how bad he was flushing in embarrassment, he hoped. “No harm done.” He walked off quickly.

“Have a good day!” The guy called after him awkwardly, like he could  _ have _ a good day after an encounter like  _ that,  _ and like it was a normal thing to say to someone you accidentally knocked over. He must’ve turned to the camera, because Billy heard him start speaking in a newscaster voice. ”Hi, Tom, I’m on the scene here in Philadelphia where just a few days ago numerous locals claim to have been witness to a superhero battle at a winter carnival—“

Billy shook his head and stepped into the automatic sliding doors and into the rush of warm air in the store.  _ That _ was a close one. 

He wandered around the check-out lines until he found Mary, still standing and scanning items for some elderly lady. She saw him and brightened. “Billy! Hi, I’ll be right with you as soon as I’m done getting this nice lady checked out.”

The old woman adjusted her bifocals and squinted at him. “Friend of yours?” She asked Mary.

“He’s my little foster brother,” Mary told her.

“Brother?” The old woman said, a bit loudly, like she hadn’t heard. “Oh!” She studied him anew. “You two look just alike! Your parents must be very proud.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Mary said agreeably, meeting Billy’s gaze and lightly rolling her eyes. Billy stifled a snicker and carefully pursed his expression back to neutral.

The old lady absolutely refused help to take her purchases out to her car and thanked Mary and ‘her handsome brother’ once again before very slowly setting off with her cart, and Mary shrugged and switched off with a coworker. She and Billy wandered off to the food court on the second floor, but they just snuck in and commandeered a table in the back. 

Rosa had made the leftover slow-roast from Christmas into sandwiches with spicy mayo and mustard and brined peppers and cheese. Billy had seconds packed alongside Mary’s lunch. 

“Victor’s cooking is  _ amazing,”  _ Mary mumbled appreciatively when she was halfway through her sandwich, setting it down and pulling the little baggie of kale chips and potato chips from inside her sack. “So, you’re going stir-crazy, huh?”

Billy blinked. “How did you—“

“Your nose is like, perpetually wrinkled-up in this awkward, ‘please-get-me-out-of-this’ look.” Mary said, munching a chip and pointing at his face. “Plus, I’m the same way.” She grinned and tossed him a kale chip onto the paper bag. 

Surprised, he grabbed it and ate it a bit distractedly. “You used to run away?”

“Oh yeah, all the time,” Mary said offhandedly, taking another bite out of her sandwich. “I was around...nine when I got placed with Rosa and Victor? Things weren’t great at home before that. I’d run away probably a dozen times before there was finally a CPS home check bad enough to take me into custody. I don’t think my mother really cared all too much that they took me.” Mary played with her bottle of juice, eyes downcast. “Made things easier on both of us.” 

Billy wasn’t sure how to react to that. He knew he shouldn’t feel warmed or understood, but he did. He should feel slightly sick at the thought of someone hurting Mary, especially when she was just a little kid, and he did. He stayed silent. 

“Anyway.” Mary went on. “I was so used to running away whenever anything went wrong, I kept doing it. Even when what happened was nothing compared to what I used to deal with. I’d run away if I got a bad grade or if I was accidentally rude to a teacher, or if I snapped at another kid. And especially if I fought with Victor and Rosa.”

Billy choked a half-laugh. “I almost can’t imagine them fighting with anyone.” 

“Oh, they don’t.” Mary said. “Not like I knew it, anyway. It took a lot of work for me to get to a point I could accept that everything wasn’t gonna come crashing down around my ears whenever anything went wrong. For awhile my compromise was climbing out on the roof when I was upset, instead of flat-out leaving the property.”

“Seriously?” 

“Seriously.” Mary nodded. 

“Huh.” Billy said.

“Anyway, don’t hesitate to discuss it with Rosa and Victor if it keeps bugging you. They’ll help you come up with some compromises and safer coping mechanisms. We want you to be comfortable, but we also want you safe. And friends with the rest of us, if possible.” Mary winked and threw away the bag her sandwich had been in.

All that was left was the conchas from Christmas, and they shared them from the paper sack while riding the escalator downstairs.

“You guys did a great job on those,” Mary told him, licking crumbs from her fingers.

“Thanks—“ Billy started to say, but not even halfway through the word, the entire building shook, and the lights flickered and screams echoed through the atrium. The escalator jarred for a split second before starting up again. He and Mary had almost unconsciously grabbed for each other and now pulled back but only slightly, exchanging frightened glances. 

“What was—“ Billy asked.

“I don’t know,” Mary said tensely, and they hurried down the sluggishly moving escalator and leapt onto the floor, running for the front door. They stopped short at the glass paneling—or what remained of it—on either side of the automatic entry and looked out. 

Billy’s jaw dropped. The camera crew that had been standing outside was scattering in a panic, cars were rammed into each other and at a standstill as people ran every which way, and towering above the buildings was a giant robot, easily five times the height of a human. Its foot, when it hit the pavement, was the same size as a compact car it barely missed. 

“What is  _ that?” _ Mary asked, aghast.

“I don’t know!” Billy said, ducking sort-of-behind Mary and wincing when the robot took another step and crushed the front end of a car. Someone screamed inside the car and Billy froze. The robot kept going, and ducked its head, seeming to focus on the people running along the sidewalks and the roads, trying to get away. It was crowded from the post-Christmas rush. 

“We’ve got to do something,” Billy said, and Mary glanced back at him worriedly, but nodded.

“You go ahead,” she told him. “I’ll be right behind you.”

Billy nodded seriously and took off through the automatic doors, which rattled open hesitantly. He ran the length of the building and ducked into the alley beside it—

And stopped. And stared. Because staring right back at him was the newscaster guy from earlier, the dorky one with the big-framed glasses. The glasses made his eyes look bigger than they were, and they looked like saucers now as he took in Billy, standing at the edge of the alley, seeing him, with his button-down ripped open to reveal the blue-and-red S underneath. 

“I, uh.” The guy said. “Um.”

Billy just stared. 

The guy fumbled for his glasses with one hand and shoved them up tight across his nose. “Ah.” He flapped a hand wordlessly in Billy’s direction. “You should...probably run, kid.”

Billy laughed a bit, helplessly. Hysterically. “Yeah. Uh. No, I’m good.”

“Seriously,” the guy _ —Superman!— _ said, seeming to give up and continue shedding his clothes. “I’ll try to take care of this, but I don’t need to worry about any more civilians than I have to…”

“Don’t worry,” Billy told him, stifling a sudden, giddy feeling. “I’m good.” Then he said, _ “Shazam!” _

___

 

Clark Kent was not having the best day.

His flight to Philadelphia was delayed  _ three _ times due to technical issues, and he had to sit around the Metropolis airport for hours—even though he could have easily flown to Philly himself in a few seconds—because he was going on work-business and Perry would be suspicious if he was there like a shot. Jimmy had to cancel because of a family thing, and Lois was busy, too, so it was him alone with a crew he didn’t usually work with. Then he somehow managed to run into a kid and knock him over—thank God he hadn’t been going too fast, or he would’ve broken his nose—and he’d flubbed his lines twice in practice. And then, when he was wrapping up the shoot, a  _ giant robot  _ had flown down from up in the sky and landed, and started going after the crowded, panicked mass of civilians just trying to return their ill-fitting North Face jackets in the in-between after Christmas.

And then he’d run off to change and been run in on right in the act. He felt like he did when someone spoke to him out of nowhere or knocked on the door of the public bathroom he was in. But as it turned out, his day could, in fact, get worse.

Because the kid—who’d  _ seen his face, and _ his uniform—refused to run away, like he should. And then he said “Shazam!”—yelled was more like it—and  _ lightning _ struck him. Clark didn’t have time to react beyond a very uncomfortable skip of his heart, and whipped his hand up against the gust of wind that shot through the alley. He lowered his hand...and blinked, dumbfounded.

The kid was gone, and in his place was a grown man in a red spandexy-costume with a glowing lightning bolt on his chest. 

Clark dropped his work clothes on the ground.

“Pretty cool, right?” The kid said. It was a man’s voice, but there was no mistaking a kid’s words. 

“Uh,” Clark said again. He could swear his eyelid was twitching. 

Another huge crash resounded through the strip, and the kid’s head whipped back toward it, expression worried. “I’ll go take care of that,” he said. And before Clark could get a word out past his wordless stammers, the not-a-kid-anymore  _ rose off the pavement  _ and flew off, and broke the sound barrier behind him.

Clark was left alone in the alley, in his suit but with his glasses on. He hurriedly yanked them off and shoved them into their case and jammed it in his pocket, and took off himself in a hurry. 

He made straight for the nearby sounds of the robot proceeding down the road, and was gratified to see the kid hovering some distance away from it, trying to plot an attack strategy, hopefully? Clark pulled up beside him, out-of-breath, and gasped out, “Sorry, I uh—who are you?”

“Bil—I mean, uh,“ the other guy said, and flushed. He finally glanced over, and with as much bravado as he could muster, put his hands on his hips and said, “You can call me Powerboy!”

Clark winced. That was a terrible name. But he didn’t say anything. “And uh, where are your parents, Powerboy?”

“At home,” the other said, deflating slightly at his tone. “I was bringing my sister lunch.” 

“Your sis—“ Clark was distracted by a loud crunching noise, and the screams down below redoubled. The robot had torn a building right off its foundation and was lifting it high in the air.

Powerboy paled noticeably. Good, Clark thought. Maybe there was some hope he could deal with this without getting anyone hurt. 

“Listen, I get that you want to help, and I appreciate it, but I’ve actually dealt with this sort of thing before?” He said. “So if you don’t mind—“

The kid suddenly blasted away in a hurry, and Clark was taken aback until he looked up and realized the robot was going to hurl the building down full-force. Even worse, it was an apartment building. He rocketed after... _ Powerboy— _ golly, even  _ thinking _ the name made him cringe—and braced himself as he slowed and held his hands out. The weight of the building rammed into him, and he reeled back, but held—and as he cautiously looked around, he saw the kid beside him, holding an equal amount of the hundreds of tons of brick and rebar and wood and metal—without straining.

_ Son of a gun. _

“Who  _ did this _ to you?” Clark asked, in shock.

“A wizard,” the kid responded, gritting his teeth and shifting the building.

“Which one?” Clark asked, mentally filing through all the wizards he knew as he started lowering the building towards the street. 

“S-h-a-z-a-m,” the other guy spelled out, and Clark was confused for a split-second; until he realized that if he’d just said it, he’d change back. And that wouldn’t be good when he was trying to hold a building up. 

“Oh, him.” Clark said despairingly.

Powerboy’s head snapped to him. “You know him?” He asked.

“Yeahhh,” Clark said uncomfortably, setting the building down. “He pulled me to the Rock of Eternity back in the day.”

“Did he reject you for not being pure of heart?” Billy asked, copying his movements and setting the building down.

“Nah,” Clark said, dusting his hands off. “Got rejected for not being human.” 

People immediately spilled out of windows and doors from the apartment building, and Clark hurriedly strode over. “Carefully, now. Everyone out,” he called, helping people down and onto the pavement. He focused his hearing inside the building as he did, listening for any especially distressed heartbeats or cries.

“Anyone hurt?” Powerboy asked worriedly, following behind Clark. He went over and reached down a toddler from someone in the window to someone waiting below, and then helped a young boy—presumably the baby’s sibling—down. He couldn’t set the pre-teen down, though, because he hugged him tight. “Thank you,” he said, crying in that reluctant way any boy did, and Powerboy looked both uncomfortable and sympathetic, and set the kid down and offered him a firm handshake. “Take your brother and run,” he told him, and the boy nodded and scooped up the toddler and did so. 

“Okay, so what do we do?” Powerboy turned to Clark, looking determined, and Clark decided he didn’t have time to argue semantics with so many innocents in the crossfire. He glanced up at the robot, which was still making its way down the strip. 

“It’s called The Construct,” he told Poweboy quickly. “It’s an alien species with an innate hatred for humanity. It can control anything electronic.”

Powerboy hissed a breath in through his teeth, and conveniently at that moment, all the modern cars littering the road—including the ones with their passengers still in them—suddenly turned on in unison and began rocketing forward. 

Clark leapt into flight and Powerboy was right behind him, and he called over the wind, “I’ll get the cars, you get anyone who’s in the way OUT!”

“Right!” The kid called, and Clark had to trust him to do it. He pivoted and swooped down over the herd of incoming cars, dodging between them and focusing on the sounds of humans rather than the engine noises. Wherever he heard occupants, he made for the car, yanked the door off, and pulled as many as possible out and hurried them to relative safety off the side of the road before doubling back for any others. He had to push himself to move fast enough to save people from deaths in collisions, but slowly enough to avoid injuring them—they couldn’t take the same forces and speeds he could. Likely a fair number of them would wind up with sprains and even broken bones, and it pained him even worse that he could hear the injuries happen—but he had to hope that they would understand and just be thankful they’d survived unscathed. 

Suddenly, he heard lightning strike again nearby, and then someone was swooping down towards him. But it wasn’t Powerboy; it was a woman, but dressed similarly to him, almost in a matching uniform. “Hi! Sorry!” She shouted at him. “Figured you could use a hand!”

“Please tell me you’re not a child, too.” Clark said over the wind, grabbing someone out of a car.

“I’m seventeen,” she said proudly, pulling someone out of the passenger side.

“Oh good,” Clark said, gritting his teeth, “she’s seventeen.” Ah well. Ma told him there’d be days like this. He rushed to deposit the person from the car, and Ms. Power or whatever her name was followed him. He doubled back to check again, and she trailed behind him, flying. “Do you know what that thing is?”

“It’s called the Construct,” he told her, beginning to feel like a tour guide. “An alien species that inherently hates humans. It can control electronics and—“

He paused when she stopped, and glanced back, confused...until Powerboy descended and hovered parallel with her. Both their expressions were unsettlingly blank.

“—and can control human minds,” Clark finished his statement exhaustedly. This was a really not good day. 

He quickly flew directly up to avoid a double-whammy hit in the midsection, and tried desperately to think. When he’d encountered this before, it was with the Justice League, and Flash had defeated it with lightning. Push came to shove, he could call Diana...but maybe he could figure out a way by himself. 

He pivoted, and hovered in the air. “Hey, Power Twins! What’s your real name again?”

He dodged a blast of lightning, and grinned. Maybe he could get them to do it. He flew towards the Construct, which was a bit less expressive, focused on controlling the two superheroes. “Was it Shablam?” He ducked beneath another blast of lightning, and it hit the Construct right in the face plating. The robot bounced, but didn’t collapse, or release the two.

“Was it...Kazam?” He flew up and dodged another lightning strike, which hit the robot’s chest plate. It teetered, but didn’t fall.

Clark gauged where they were, and flew down between the robot’s legs to the other side of it. The two followed him, and as soon as they were on the far side of the Construct, he shouted, “Is it...Sparklefingers?” 

“It’s  _ Shazam!” _ Both of them shouted at once, and twin lightning bolts arced down from the clear sky and went through the Construct to reach them. The alien twitched and crashed, and started to tip over. Clark flew and grabbed it, setting it out of the way, and pivoted back to swoop in and catch the two kids, who were tumbling down through the air. “Gotcha!” He said, grabbing them both. It took them a moment to stop screaming. “Sorry,” Clark told them apologetically. 

“What happened?” The boy asked dazedly, shaking his head. 

“I forgot the Construct could control minds,” Clark told them. “It uh…never affected me, so it slipped my memory.” 

He swooped down and set them on their feet on the pavement. “I wasn’t sure, but the Construct can sort of read the content of your minds while it has control of you, so I hoped that baiting it would get it to lash out with whatever it found, since it didn’t have the context to know what that did.” Clark shrugged ruefully and grinned. “Thankfully, it seems to have worked.” 

The girl looked around. “What a mess,” she said softly, and Clark winced. “Yeah…” He glanced at the wreckage, too, and the crowds of people wandering in a shock, and at the wave of police cars and ambulances and fire trucks that had gathered at the edges, with more arriving at every second. “I’ll escort you kids home,” he said. “I’m sure your folks are worried sick.” He eyed the two. Both were kind of staring at their feet and avoiding his gaze. 

“Are you going to tell on us?” The boy said, in a very small voice.

Clark furrowed a brow. “I mean...not if you don’t want me to? I understand having a secret identity. But I—“ he trailed off as something occurred to him. “Wait. You...you’re the hero that’s viral on YouTube, which means... _ there are six of you?!” _

Abashedly, the two nodded. 

Clark raked a hand through his hair, wondering if he could go gray over the course of a single day. “Are you  _ all _ kids?”

They nodded somberly again.

“Okay.” Clark scrubbed a hand over his mouth, and turned away for a moment. “Okay.  _ Hoooo _ kay.” 

He turned around again. “Sorry. It’s just.” He flapped a hand dismissively. “Been a day.” 

No answer. He sighed. “Is there a reason you don’t want me to tell?”

“Our foster parents would be upset,” the boy said.

Suddenly Clark’s heart was in his stomach.  _ Oh.  _ That changed things. “If…” he started, hesitantly. “If you need help…”

The boy’s head whipped up at the same time the girl exclaimed, “No!” They exchanged glances, and the boy swallowed and said, “I didn’t mean—they won’t hurt us, they’ll just worry.”

“They’re not like that at all,” the girl added.

“Okay,” Clark said. “I believe you.” And he did. He’d never yet met a foster kid who lied about what their parents were really like to Superman. “Well then, no. I won’t, er. Tell on you.”

The girl clasped her hands and the boy pumped a fist. 

“But.” Clark said, and they both froze. “Now that I know you exist and you’re kids and all, if you get in over your head, call me? I won’t be able to live with myself if I let you all deal with some sort of world-ending threat on your own. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” the girl said, and the boy nodded vigorously.

“Okay.” Clark nodded. Then he glanced at the two of them. “Your names are?”

They exchanged glances again. Then the girl extended a knit-mittened hand. “Mary Bromfield.”

Clark shook it. “Nice to meet you.” He glanced at the boy.

“I’m…” he mumbled, seeming embarrassed. “I’m Billy. Billy Batson.”

Clark raised his eyebrows a bit, visions of Bruce’s reaction to that last name dancing behind his eyes, but he nodded at Billy. “Nice to meet you both,” he told them. “Clark Kent.” 

___

 

Mary and Billy wound up transforming back into their hero forms to fly back to their house, with Clark tagging along. About a block from their house, they landed, and the kids said, “Shazam!” and were left standing as themselves in a cloud of smoke. 

“Well, I’d best be getting back,” Clark said, wondering if he’d have time to double back to Smallville for supper at home before checking in at his hotel and calling Perry.

“Wait!” Mary said, and he stopped. “Yes?” He asked.

Mary glanced at Billy. “Is there any way...you might consider…”

Billy blurted out, “Freddy, he’s...he’s my best friend and he’s a huge fan of yours. He gets bullied a lot, and it was kind of my fault—well, not exactly—but he said I’d come to lunch with him as, well, other me, but I didn’t. I wanna fix it, and I’m going to, but...it would mean a lot to him if you could do it, too. I...I know you’re busy, so, if you can’t.” He kicked the sidewalk awkwardly with one foot. 

“Lunch at school, you say,” Clark said, thinking of how he’d been bullied as a kid. “...I think I can manage that.”

Mary’s face lit up, and Billy looked up sharply. “Really?”

Clark nodded, smiling. “I mean. I’m on lunch break anyway at that time. Might as well take a little jaunt down here. Nice change of pace from Metropolis.” 

Mary and Billy both jumped excitedly. “Thank you,” Mary said, and Billy echoed it. “Thank you so, so much.”

“Oh, you’re welcome.” Clark said, flushing. He floated up a foot or so above the ground and self-consciously brushed down his hair. “I um.” He met their eyes seriously. “I don’t know many people who would do what you all are doing with superpowers you got by accident.” He said quietly. “I’m impressed. Don’t change that. It’s a testament to all of you.” 

Billy swallowed hard and flushed bright red. Mary’s eyes were shining, and she was smiling so big it looked like her face might break. 

Clark waved awkwardly at them, and flew higher. They were right outside their house now, and Clark went on but kept watching below him. The front door came flying open and their foster mom and a few other kids ran out and immediately caught the two up in a group hug, and Clark flew for home in Kansas with a smile on his face. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to figure what the funniest possible way Shazam could’ve met Superman was, and came to the conclusion it would be running into each other in an abandoned alley trying to transform. So.


	8. Chapter 8

The Saturday after the Construct Incident, Mary received a text from an unknown number. It read ‘hi!! I just wanted to check in and see if monday  *bicep emoji* works for operation surprise-best-friend?’ 

A minute or so later, another one popped up. ‘sorry, this is clark kent by the way.’ 

Mary went and found Billy and brought him back to her room to show him the text. “Makes sense,” Billy said. “I guess we’ll plan on doing that.”

“Okay then,” Mary said. She quickly texted back and then stuck her phone into her pocket. “Oh, I’m so excited for this,” she told Billy, grinning. “I can’t wait to see the look on his face.”

“$5 says he screams,” Billy said dryly, but he was smiling, too.

“Screams? I’m half-worried he’ll  _ faint,” _ Mary said, rubbing her face. “You don’t understand exactly how much he loves Superman.” 

Billy had seen his Superman backpack, which he wore at a school where juniors nearly ran him over with  _ trucks, _ so he had  _ some _ idea of exactly how much Freddy loved Superman. But Mary obviously had known him longer, so. He just hoped she was wrong and Freddy didn’t faint. That would be embarrassing. 

“Maybe it’ll be safer if we sort of ease him into it,” Billy suggested.

“That’s probably not a bad idea.” Mary agreed. 

Someone knocked on the door. The two of them paused. “Billy? Hey, Billy! Pedro and I are gonna try out multiplayer! You wanna watch?”

“Sure!” Billy called, and shot a nervous look at Mary before hurrying to the door. Freddy was standing right outside. He furrowed his brows when Billy hurried out and shut the door behind him. “What were you talking about,” he asked suspiciously. 

“Nothing,” Billy told him quickly.

Freddy’s eyebrows dropped even lower, somehow.  _ “Now _ who has a face that looks like it’s hatching schemes?”

“Schemes? Me?” Billy asked, in feigned shock. He hurried down the hallway, and Freddy limped after him. 

“If you’re planning on pranking me, just know my vengeance is swift and merciless.” Freddy told him in a completely level tone, and Billy rolled his eyes despite himself. “Okay, Genghis Khan.” 

Billy threw a look back over his shoulder at Freddy. “Besides, would Mary prank you?”

Freddy seemed to consider this. “I want to say ‘no.’ Because Mary is a lovely and kind big sister and not a jerk like certain other parties who shall remain nameless.” 

Billy winced on the inside, but kept a straight face. “But?”

“But we must go through life prepared to be surprised.” Freddy declared dramatically, and hopped up onto the stair railing and slid down. Billy almost panicked until he flung out his cane at the end and landed on it with a flourish. He straightened and flung his free arm out. “Your multiplayer point-and-shoot awaits.”

___

 

Somehow, they had to find a way to explain what was going on to the other siblings without Freddy overhearing it.

That turned out to be really hard. Every time Billy tried to approach an individual, there was Freddy in close proximity, who would definitely notice if Billy came and began an interaction, and would take even more notice if the subject couldn’t be mentioned in front of him. He found Pedro in the kitchen, drawing in a sketchbook, and Freddy was there eating cheez-its out of the box. He found Darla in the living room playing with paper dolls, and Freddy was there poring over a book. He found Eugene in the computer nook backing up his ipod, and Freddy was there idly watching over his shoulder for no reason. Billy hadn’t quite realized exactly how much Freddy got around in the house. It was like he was omnipresent or something.

Eventually, he was forced to retreat to Mary for help, who individually texted each sibling with the add-on, “do NOT tell freddy,” and asked them all to meet in the living room whenever Freddy was occupied in the shower. 

So at 8:30 on Saturday evening, the small group formed in the furthest corner of the living room from the kitchen, so there was less of a chance of being overheard by Victor or Rosa.

“Does this have something to do with you-know-what?” Pedro asked cautiously, voice low, when he came up to Billy and Mary. Eugene and Darla were right behind him, watching the two curiously.

“Sort of,” Billy said. 

“You know when that robot was attacking downtown?” Mary asked.

“Yeah,” Pedro said.

“Well, we kind of—“

“Met Superman,” Eugene interrupted.

Mary and Billy glanced at him, shocked. “How did you—?”

“It was on TV.” Eugene shrugged. “I saw it on Facebook after the fact.”

“You met  _ Superman?” _ Pedro asked incredulously. “Does Freddy know?”

_ “No,” _ Billy said, exasperated. He leaned in conspiratorially. “And that’s the  _ point _ ! Mary and I asked him to come to school at lunchtime on Monday and he agreed!”

“What!” Eugene said excitedly, and Darla jumped up and down and Pedro looked startled. 

“Shhh!” Mary warned, and everyone quieted. “We want to ease Freddy into it so he doesn’t freak out too much, hopefully. Okay?”

“Okay,” Pedro said instantly, and Billy got the feeling there must have been history to prepping Freddy for surprises. Eugene nodded and Darla asked, “What do you need us to do?”

“Play it cool around Freddy until we go into class,” Mary instructed. “Then we’ll go and join him at lunch first. That’ll buy time for Billy to transform and come in. Then we’ll have Clark wait—“

“Clark?” Eugene half-screeched with his eyebrows nearly disappearing into his bangs, just as Mary winced and bit her tongue. “You know Superman’s  _ name?” _

“Yes! It’s Clark, and we can’t tell  _ anyone,  _ okay? Not even Victor and Rosa. Everyone understand?” Mary said sternly, and the kids, cowed, all nodded silently. “We’ll have  _ Clark _ wait until we’re all there to come in.”

“Well  _ that _ won’t be overdramatic at all,” Eugene muttered. “What’ll the other kids think?”

“What will the  _ staff _ think?” Pedro added pointedly.

“I hadn’t even thought of that,” Billy said worriedly.

But Mary just waved a hand dismissively. “He’s Superman. I think they’ll get over it.” 

___

 

Monday morning, five out of six kids were up and loaded in the van at 7:30 sharp. Conveniently, Mary wasn’t on a shift schedule today, so she’d be able to come to the school at noon for the surprise. She waved at Billy and winked as he hurried out the door to get in the van, and he waved back and got in the van still smiling.

Freddy, in the window seat next to him, assessed the expression with some measure of alarm. “Oh great. Now I  _ know _ something horrible is coming my way today.”

“What’d you say back there, Freddy?” Rosa asked, presumably straining to hear over Darla singing along to Kelly Clarkson on the radio and Eugene explaining some very involved encoding concept. 

“Nothing!” Freddy called back quickly, and settled against the window to ignore everyone the rest of the drive. Billy swallowed hard and sat back himself, fiddling with his gloves. He hoped Freddy would be happy to be surprised, and not mad they hadn’t given him any preparation. 

They got to school and unloaded and gave goodbye kisses and hugs to Rosa and Victor and made their way inside quickly. Billy went and haphazardly threw his stuff into his locker and then hurried to his classroom, nervous already. So many things had to go right for this to work. He’d never planned—or had—a surprise party before, and he wondered if they were all this much work. 

The entire plan turned out to be kind of a pain for his classes, because he could barely focus at all on what was being said. Thankfully, he  _ did _ know how to do math, so he scribbled the problems on his worksheets down as best he could. The morning seemed to go by painfully slowly, but somehow he was also sharply alarmed to look up and realize it was 11:45. 

His phone buzzed, and he checked it quickly. “(½) hi!! this is clark, mary gave me ur number. i’m just at this bagel place around (2/2) the block. Lmk when you all are ready!” 

Billy stuffed his phone back in his pocket just as the teacher glanced back and wearily said, “No phones in class, please, Mr. Batson.”

“Yes ma’am,” Billy told her. “Sorry, ma’am. My parents.”

Freddy glanced at him sharply, because he knew that 1. Victor and Rosa did not text them during school hours unless it was an emergency, and 2. Billy didn’t call them his parents yet, just his foster parents. 

The bell rang, and everyone got up and wandered out into the hallway. Freddy caught up with Billy. “What was that text about?” He asked knowingly. “I know it wasn’t from Rosa and Victor.” 

“Uh, it’s nothing,” Billy said quickly, trying to figure out where to go to transform. “I’m gonna go to the restroom.”

“Are you insane?” Freddy asked flatly. “Do you know how many people are in there at this time of day?”

Billy shrugged and hurried off before Freddy could ask anything else. 

But he probably should have listened, because when he shoved his way into the boys bathroom, there was a crowd of people just...standing around the sink, for some reason? One of the two stalls was open, though, and he ran for it and locked himself inside before anyone noticed him. 

He heard a bunch of yelling and jeering and carrying on, and wondered with a sinking feeling what was actually happening that they were so worked up about. Or rather, what they were doing that they were enjoying so much. 

Either way, he was kind of in a bind now, because there was no way he could say Shazam without making a scene. Actually, now that he wondered about it, how loudly did he have to say it to still get transformed? It was loud enough in here that no one would hear him speaking at normal volume. So he casually said ‘Shazam,’ and lightning arced through the open window to strike him, and the rowdy crowd of boys screamed surprised profanities and dispersed in a stampede. Billy grinned a bit, and swung the stall door open—

And came face to face with a little kid maybe a bit older than Darla, with tear streaks running down his face. Billy froze, blinking like a deer in the headlights. Half the kid’s head had hair hanging down that was so long his bangs nearly covered his eyes. The other half had been roughly shaved off, and the sink was full of his hair, and shreds of it lay on the counters. 

The kid sobbed sharply, and sniffled, and tried to clumsily scrub it away with his sleeve. 

Billy finally got some nerve and squared his shoulders and stepped forward, but not quickly or intimidatingly. He suddenly realized that he had the chance here to be the sort of adult he always wanted to have around. “Uh, hi.” He told the kid. 

The kid sniffled again, like a sharp hiccup that almost choked him. “H-how’d you get in the bathroom?” He asked in a squeaky voice. 

“Magic,” Billy told him honestly. When the kid stared at him sharply, he told him conspiratorially, “Don’t tell anyone. I don’t want the government after me.”

The kid, looking cowed, nodded. Then he looked at his hair in the sink, and started crying again.

“M-my momma’s gonna be upset,” he cried. “S-she liked my hair long. S-she said we’d get it cut soon, as soon as she—she promised!”

Billy swallowed hard, and he crouched down. Thankfully, it looked like whoever’d done it—and he placed the Breyers at the forefront of the usual suspects—had left the shaver they’d used, one of those electronic numbers. He picked it up carefully. “I bet your momma’ll like your hair any way it looks,” Billy told him. He held up the shaver apologetically. “You want me to try and get the rest of it off, just so it doesn’t look crooked?”

The kid stared at him with trepidation, and sniffled a few more times, and shuffled his feet. Billy was sharply aware of the time ticking by, but he waited anyway. “Okay,” the kid mumbled in a tiny voice. 

“Alrighty then.” Billy took the shaver and gently flicked it on the lowest setting. The kid stiffened, but held still almost automatically while he cautiously ran the shaver over the side of his head, from front to back. Billy hadn’t actually  _ used _ one of those things before, but he just focused on getting the hair off in a semi-straight manner, and it seemed to be working okay.

“What’s your name?” He asked the kid after a minute. 

The boy sniffled again. “Dylan.” He said hoarsely. “Dylan Jones.”

“Nice to meetcha, Dylan.” Billy told him earnestly. “I’m Captain Sparklefingers.”

Dylan almost choked, and looked up at Billy sharply.  _ “Really?” _ He asked, almost smiling.

“No,” Billy shook his head with a rueful grin. “I haven’t come up with a good name yet.” 

“What about—“ Dylan sniffled again, but it seemed to be by reflex, as he studied Billy’s uniform. “The Dodgeball?”

Billy laughed sharply before he could stop himself. “Okay, that’s kind of awesome, but it still doesn’t sound quite right. I'm definitely gonna use that, though, thanks.”

“Maybe...the Helpful Red?” Dylan suggested. 

“That sounds like a Hardy Boys character,” Billy half-laughed.

“What’s Hardy Boys?” Dylan asked.

“A very cheesy and kinda great book series,” Billy told him, getting to the last long bangs around his ear. “Check them out at your local library if you ever get the chance.” 

“Huh.” Dylan said. “What about...the Really Nice Adult?”

Billy was touched. “You really think I’m nice?” He asked Dylan, finishing off with the shaver. “Thank you.” He pulled the shaver back, examined his work, and switched it off. “There we go. It isn’t perfect cause I’m not a barber, believe it or not, but it doesn’t look as wonky.”

Dylan stood on his tiptoes and squinted in the mirror. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “It looks okay.”

Billy took a chance and put a hand on Dylan’s shoulder. Dylan glanced up at him. Billy swallowed. “I think your mom will love whatever hair you have just because you’re attached to it,” he said. “And I think your friends will, too.”

Dylan sniffled, and glanced at the floor. “I don’t have any friends,” he said. 

Billy bit his lip for a moment. Then he said, “Hey.”

Dylan looked up again. 

“There’s this girl who goes to your school,” Billy told him. “Little girl, purple outfit most the time? She’s a little bit younger than you are. Her name’s Darla Dudley. I think she’d like to be your friend.”

“Yeah,” Dylan said after a minute. “I know her. She gave the whole class Valentines last year.” He looked at Billy again, nervously. “You really think she’d like to?”

“I bet she would,” Billy told him honestly. “She’s nice to everybody.”

“Okay.” Dylan said, setting his jaw and wiping his nose again. “I’ll ask her.” 

“Good.” Billy said. He glanced up at the clock and paled. It was already 12:05. “Let’s get outta here, why don’t we?”

So Billy opened the bathroom door, and Dylan hesitantly wandered out behind him, glancing around nervously. Billy stepped out, too, just in time to hear a sharp, “Hey!”

Billy glanced up, and froze when he saw old Moran stomping over to him. “What’s going on here?”

Dylan glanced up at Billy, scared-looking, and Billy set a hand on his shoulder. “I was just helping Dylan here fix his hair because certain people shaved half of it off forcibly.” Billy told Moran seriously. “I suspect the Breyers had something to do with it?”

Moran’s face grew hard. “Hmm. You alright there, Dylan?”

Dylan nodded silently, eyes huge. Moran looked at Billy now, calculatingy. “How’d you get in here?”

Billy looked right back, though he kind of wanted to run away. “Magic.” He said. 

Moran kept squinting threateningly at him for a minute, then broke eye contact and glanced up and down the hallway. “Yes. Well.” He said. “I’ll, uh. I’ll have the janitor come in and clean up the mess in there.” He glanced at Dylan. “Dylan, would you mind to come with me and tell the principal what happened to you, so we can punish who did it?”

“Sure,” Dylan said uncertainly, and Moran nodded and looked at Billy again. Billy gulped but held his gaze.

“You know, you look a lot like Freddy’s dad from the  _ business office?” _ Moran said deliberately.

“Must be distant cousins,” Billy said. 

“Humph.” Moran said. “Well. Beyond my paygrade.” He straightened his belt and put an arm around Dylan’s shoulder. “Come on, son. I’ll get you to the principal so we can get you to lunch before classes start back up.”

They walked off, and after a minute Dylan glanced back and waved. “Bye!”

He called. “Thank you!”

Billy waved back. Then, when the two of them disappeared around the corner, he turned and ran off down the hallways. 

He nearly ran into Mary right outside the cafeteria. “Where were you?” She asked.

“Emergency,” he told her, out-of-breath. “Sorry.” 

“That’s okay,” Mary told him. “I’ll just text Clark real quick and let him know we’re ready in a minute here.” She fired it off real quick, and then stuffed it back in her pocket. She patted Billy’s arm. “Good luck. See you in a minute.” Then she disappeared into the cafeteria. 

Billy swallowed hard, squared his shoulders and wandered in. He paused at the countertop, and the lunch lady stared at him.

He smiled winningly at her. “Hi,” he said. “Uh, somebody saved a tray for me?” 

___

 

Clark got a text from Mary that they were ready for him, so he got up from his table and dropped a five in the tip jar, waved as he left in response to the worker’s ‘thank you,’ and went out onto the street. He ducked into an alley and glanced around to make sure no one was watching, and launched into the air, shedding his civilian clothes as he did. He flew the short way over to the school and landed outside, and made his way up to the front door. A security guard who was on his phone suddenly sat bolt upright and fumbled and nearly dropped it. Clark caught it for him, only an inch above the floor. “Sorry about that,” he said apologetically. “I’m just...here for a morale visit for the kids. Is it alright if I come in?”

The security guard nodded vigorously, accepted his phone, and sat back and stared while Clark went through the metal detector and stepped inside. 

Clark blinked at the maze of similar-looking hallways and classrooms. He glanced around until he found a sign for the cafeteria and followed it. 

He stepped into the door to the cafeteria a bit hesitantly and glanced around. Hundreds of kids were huddled at tables eating. He went forward a bit and glanced at the counter, where the lunch lady was staring at him. “Uh, hi.” He said. He pulled his wallet out from his pocket. “Can I get just whatever you have left?”

The lady shoved a tray at him. “Keep it,” she nodded at the money.”

“Uh, okay,” Clark said, putting it back. He took the tray, and said an awkward “Thank you,” and turned to go. Behind him, he heard the lunch lady say to another worker, “You’d think they’d  _ warn us  _ when it was Cape Day around here?”

Clark glanced around, and saw Powerboy—ugh _ —Billy, _ in his thankfully-conspicuous bright red spandex. Billy saw him and kind of stifled a grin. Clark squared his shoulders and walked up to the table. The kid sitting next to Billy looked confused, and glanced back—then paled noticeably. “Uh,” he said, squeaked. 

Clark smiled. “Hi, everyone!” He said to the room at large. Then he glanced back down and asked, “Mind if I sit down?”

The kid—and he guessed this must be Freddy—blinked owlishly, then shook his head and scooted over, even though there was plenty of room. Clark set his tray on the table and sat down on the mildly uncomfortable bench, and held a hand out to the boy. “I’m Superman. Nice to meet you.” 

Freddy stared blankly for a long moment before he belatedly and enthusiastically shook the aforementioned limb. “Hi. I-I’m Freddy,” he stammered.

“Nice to meet you, Freddy.” Clark said. He nodded towards Billy. “Powerboy here tells me you taught him how to be a superhero, is that right?”

“Well, uh—“ Freddy mumbled. “Sort of?”

“Yes,” his siblings chorused. 

“That’s amazing,” Clark said seriously. “I wish I’d had someone to help me figure out my powers when I was growing up. I had to learn it all on my own.” 

“R-really?” Freddy asked, seeming to get a little less freaked out the longer he managed to speak. 

“Really,” Clark said. “Nobody really knew what I was; least of all me!” Nervous laughter echoed around the room. “Thankfully, I had some really great parents, and I’ve made some really good friends.”

“Is Batman one of them?” Freddy asked.

“Um,” Clark said. “Yeah. I mean, I hadn’t met him in person till a couple years back, but after a rocky start, yeah. He’s a pretty good guy. After the whole.” Clark shrugged uncomfortably. “You know. Blackmail incident.” 

Freddy nodded, expression still looking a little blank. Billy cleared his throat. The other kids nervously glanced around, hoping the silence wouldn’t get too awkward.

Freddy grabbed his backpack and dug out a notebook and a pencil. “Mind if I pick your brain for a bit?” He asked.

Clark smiled. “Go right ahead.” 

___

 

Freddy filled what seemed like a whole notebook over the course of thirty minutes, and Clark also made his way around the room and shook hands and gave autographs. He even shook the Breyer brothers’ hands—they paled and clasped them experimentally after he’d moved on. Finally, at 12:50, he glanced at the clock and said, “I’m gonna have to be going now. But it’s been great to hang out with all of you!”

He turned back to Freddy and shook his hand again. “Freddy, keep being you.”

“Yes sir,” Freddy said, with a mock salute.

Clark smiled, and glanced at the lunchroom full of kids. “You guys go back to class and try your best! And if you ever need me, I’m just a call away.” He saluted, too, and threw a wave towards Billy. Then he raised about a foot off the floor and flew off down the hall, waving behind him. 

Freddy was promptly swarmed by dozens of kids asking excited questions. Mary threw a thumbs-up towards Billy. He returned it, and snuck off to change back before the bell rang. 

___

 

That afternoon, when school let out, Billy was wandering down the hallway in the crowd when the Bryer brothers saw him. “Oh you are so dead!” Brett—at least, he thought it was Brett—shouted, and the two of them charged at him. 

Billy quickly pivoted and ran full-pelt back down the hallway, further into the school. He swung around a corner and nearly ran into Freddy and the other siblings. 

“What—“ Mary started to say, but was cut off when the two swung around the corner and spotted Billy. He tried to dodge past the other foster kids as quick as possible without hurting anyone, but it gave Brett and Burke time to catch up to him. Burke grabbed him by the jacket and threw him against the opposite wall. 

“Hey!” Freddy snapped, at the same time that Mary half-screamed, and Darla screeched Billy’s name and nearly charged before Pedro grabbed her and held her back. Brett tag-teamed with his brother and grabbed Billy when he landed and hauled him back up and slammed him into the wall again before he had a chance to get his breath back from the first blow. “Punks like you don’t mess with us and get away with it, bozo,” Brett sneered in his face, and reared back to slug him. Billy tried to free a hand to at least block it out of sheer reflex, wishing he could transform but knowing there was no way he could do it here and now. But he couldn’t break out of the bigger teen’s grasp, and the fist was coming at him fast.

“Hey!” Another voice snapped, and Brett froze and glanced sharply down the hall. Officer Moran was striding sharply toward them, looking pissed, and little Dylan Jones from earlier was following scared in his wake. 

Brett’s distraction gave Billy the chance to wriggle loose and leap for his siblings. Mary and Darla and Eugene caught him immediately and pulled him back into their huddle so he was surrounded by a makeshift shield of the rest of them. “Are you okay?” Mary asked worriedly, checking him over quickly. 

Billy nodded, and inhaled roughly, his ribs aching slightly from the impact with the wall. 

“What exactly was the meaning of that, gentlemen?” Moran asked sternly, glaring at the two.

Brett puffed his chest up and Burke straightened his shoulders. “The little punk attacked us with a crutch before break.”

“A crutch? You mean  _ my crutch?”   _ Freddy scoffed sharply, standing defensively in front of Billy and Darla. “Which was lying on the ground, where I  _ dropped it  _ after you asshats nearly ran me over with your truck?”

“You did  _ what?”  _ Moran snapped in renewed anger. 

“He’s lying,” Brett hissed defensively.

“Dylan, are these the ones who grabbed you earlier and manhandled you without your permission?” Moran turned to the small boy. 

Dylan blinked, eyeing the bigger boys nervously. Brett and Burke, for their part, glared menacingly at the tiny boy. Dylan swallowed hard and glanced at Billy and the huddle of his foster siblings. Billy knew Dylan didn’t recognize him, but he tried to look at him as encouragingly as he could.

“It’s okay, son.” Moran told Dylan, very gently. “I won’t let them hurt you again. Are they the ones?”

Dylan glanced at them again, and nodded minutely.

Moran, satisfied, turned back to the Breyer boys. “That’s three incidents of what could easily involve serious harm to fellow students within the last  _ month?  _ I will be taking this information directly to the principal and the school board, and I will highly recommend you both be expelled. Get off the school’s property right this moment, and if I catch you messing with anyone else on the way out, you  _ will _ regret it. I will be phoning your parents  _ personally _ this evening.” He jabbed a thumb sharply in the direction of the doors. “Get!” 

Brett and Burke scowled at Moran, and at Dylan, and at the foster kids, but turned tail and ran angrily off towards the doors. Moran tuned to Dylan. “Thank you for your help with that, Mr. Jones,” he told him sincerely. “I promise I’ll do everything in my power to make certain you don’t have to deal with them intimidating you ever again.” 

Dylan nodded shyly, and Moran turned to the others. “You alright there, Mr. Batson?” He asked.

“I think so,” Billy answered uncomfortably, dusting his sleeves off. 

“I apologize for that mess,” Moran told him. “I’ll make darn sure nothing like it ever happens in these hallways again.”

“Thank you, sir,” Billy said, kind of stunned. He guessed being a hardass about your job sometimes meant you valued it. 

“I’ll walk you kids to the door,” Officer Moran said. “You too, Dylan.”

Dylan nodded silently, and awkwardly sidled up to their group. “Hi,” he told Darla.

“Hi,” she said back.

“I’m Dylan.” He said.

“I know,” she replied.

“Would you.” Dylan gulped. “Would you like to be friends?”

Darla glanced at him. Then she grinned. “Sure!” She said enthusiastically. “Do you like LEGOs?”

“Yeah!” Dylan said almost excitedly, and from that point on in the walk to the door, Billy almost couldn’t make out what they were saying through the chattering. He stifled a smile. 

When they got to the door, Officer Moran let them out and wished them a good evening. Mary led the way down the stairs to where the van was parked at the curb, waiting.

Freddy caught up to Billy. “You met  _ Superman _ and you didn’t tell me?” He accused. 

“I’m sorry!” Billy said defensively. “It wasn’t on purpose, it just kind of happened!”

“How?” Freddy demanded.

“I.” Billy’s shoulders slumped. “I ran into him changing in an alley while I was trying to change, too.”

Freddy blinked. “You’re kidding.”

Billy shook his head. “Nope.”

Freddy made a faint ‘huh’ sound. Then he looked at Billy. “Mary said surprising me was your idea.”

Billy shrugged, looking miserable. “Sort of. I felt bad for earlier. And I know you love him, so.” He glanced past the van uncomfortably, avoiding eye contact. “I didn’t really think about whether it was a good idea or not until after we’d already agreed.”

“A good idea.” Freddy asked. Billy glanced at him, confused.

Before Billy had a chance to react, Freddy grabbed him in a tight hug, head ducked. “It was the  _ best.” _

Billy was floored. 

Freddy squeezed him tight for a second, whispered, “Thank you,” just barely loud enough to hear, then let him go and straightened and scrambled up into the van with Pedro’s help. 

Billy just stood there for a minute. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m officially on the ‘Officer Moran the security guard is actually a pretty nice guy who cares about kids and takes his job seriously’ train.
> 
> also I’m going back to work for the first time in seven months tomorrow! pray for me lmao


	9. Chapter 9

Days turned into weeks, and soon Christmas was well and truly over, and they were back into the swing of school and work. Billy wasn’t quite sure what to make of the whole thing. The longest he’d stayed anywhere was six months, and he couldn’t help but wonder if he would stay at the Vasquez’s that long. Of course, things were different now that he wasn’t _planning_ on running. But he still wondered if circumstance would wind up stealing it away. 

One particularly late evening, after coming home from some after-school activities, he felt kind of sick. Victor was cooking supper and it smelled good, but it turned Billy’s stomach, so he opted to go to bed early. He shook his head at Rosa’s questioning and told her he was just tired, and he guessed he was. He went up to his and Freddy’s bedroom. He changed into pajamas and climbed up to the top bunk, wincing all the way. He laid down and dragged his blanket over his head and curled into a ball and closed his eyes, hoping his stomach ache would go away.

It didn’t. It got worse. Much, much worse, and it seemed to be stuck in just one side of him, stabbing if he moved and burning even when he didn’t. He tried to keep quiet when Freddy came in for the night, and he guessed Freddy must have thought he was asleep, because he went to bed himself without saying anything, and took care to be quiet. But he wasn’t asleep. He couldn’t be, as much as he wanted to. He lay there and gritted his teeth and fought back tears.

He must have somehow dozed off at some point, because when he woke again, he could tell it was late and early at once. But that wasn’t what woke him. It was the pain. It was so bad he almost couldn’t breathe. It was so bad he couldn’t keep quiet, and he heard Freddy shift in the lower bunk.

“Billy,” he whispered, in a quiet voice that said he was getting scared. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” Billy gasped back. He had one arm wrapped around his middle and his other hand clutched in his comforter. “I don’t know, I don’t—“

Freddy sat up quickly and Billy heard him grabbing for his cane. “I’m getting Rosa and Victor,” he said. Billy didn’t protest, and said nothing, panting for breath from the pain. Freddy almost ran down the hallway to Rosa and Victor’s room, and banged on the door frantically. “Rosa! Victor!” He tried to be quiet, but his voice was cracking and panicked despite himself. 

The door swung open, and Rosa was there. “Freddy? What is it?”

“It’s Billy,” he said quickly, face crumpling. “Something’s wrong.”

Victor was suddenly passing Rosa in the doorway and heading straight for their bedroom, and Rosa belatedly followed with Freddy. Victor got there first, and softly called, “Billy? I’m coming in,” as he opened the door and disappeared inside. Rosa and Freddy stood back in the hallway, waiting worriedly.

Another bedroom door opened, and Eugene leaned his head out, blinking heavily. “Mom?” He asked sleepily. “What’s going on?”

Rosa opened her mouth to answer, but she was cut off by a sharp, agonized cry from the bedroom, and she froze, her face white. Freddy’s heart skipped painfully inside him, and he heard Victor’s heavy tread coming quickly to the door. He stuck his head out and called to Rosa, his voice tense, “Rosa, call 911. I’m nearly certain it’s appendicitis.” He shut the door and disappeared again. 

Rosa’s breathing was shaky, but she turned and immediately went back towards her bedroom for her phone, and Freddy and a frightened Eugene followed in her wake. “Mom? What’s gonna happen?”

Rosa switched their light on in a hurry, and both the boys blinked furiously. “They’ll send an ambulance, and one of us will go with Billy to the hospital,” she told them quickly, grabbing her phone and dialing. “They usually do surgery.” She brought the phone to her ear, and after only a second said, “Hi, I need an ambulance? I believe my son has appendicitis.”

She walked off, still talking, and she walked past Mary coming in as she left. 

 _“Surgery?”_ Eugene said, voice warbly. 

“Yeah,” Mary said quietly. “It’s usually not a huge deal if it’s caught in time…” 

Freddy swallowed hard. What if they _hadn’t_ caught it quickly enough? Billy had been feeling bad since dinnertime. He knew the older boy hadn’t _meant_ to ignore it, he probably just assumed it wasn’t that bad...until it was. 

Rosa walked hurriedly by again, and disappeared into her room. She came out again in a moment with a pair of Victor’s shoes, and hurried into Billy and Freddy’s bedroom.

Pedro had appeared in the hallway, and Rosa asked, “Pedro, hon, could you please go unlock the front door?” as she passed him. He turned and left to do so without a word, and Freddy hesitantly tapped forward past the other kids toward his room. It felt more foreboding than usual, and part of him didn’t want to go in, but he did it anyway. Their lamp was switched on, and Billy was down and sprawled over Freddy’s bed. His face was turned away and his head was low over his shoulders, and pressed up against Victor’s leg. Rosa was crouched beside him, gently stroking his hair. He was crying helplessly. 

Freddy wanted to cry, too. “Billy?” He said, a little unsteadily. 

Billy stiffened just a little. He tried moving his head, a bit. He didn’t manage to move too far without catching his breath, but he was kind of looking at Freddy. He had tear streaks running down his face.

“I’m sorry you feel bad,” Freddy said lamely, with no idea what he could, or should say to something like this. Frankly, he was scared shitless. But Billy had to be feeling worse about the whole thing. 

The four of them in the room could hear the muffled sirens coming their way. Pedro opened the door when the EMTs jogged up the front steps. “Second door on your right upstairs,” he told them quickly, and they made for the staircase, bags in hand. 

Freddy backed away from the doorframe and stood by their desk as the EMTs came in. A woman with a blond ponytail approached the bed and set her bag down, taking a knee beside it. “My name is Miranda,” she told Rosa and Victor. “Are you the ones who called?” 

“Yes,” Rosa told her.

“Is this your son?” She gestured at Billy.

“Yes,” Victor told her.

Miranda nodded shortly and pulled on a pair of rubber gloves. “What’s his name?”

“Billy,” Freddy stammered from the other side of the room, and Miranda glanced quickly at him and nodded in acknowledgement. She leaned forward and studied what was visible of Billy intently. “Billy?” She asked softly.

Billy raised his head a bit.

“My name is Miranda,” she told him gently. “I’m an EMT, and I’m here to help you. I’m going to examine you real quick, if that’s okay?”

Billy glanced at Rosa and Victor, and gave a tiny nod. Miranda gently checked his throat and his pulse, and pulled on her stethoscope to listen to his lungs. “Tell me what happened?” She asked him.

Billy started to shrug, then stopped with a wince when it hurt. “I-I’ve had a stomach ache since this afternoon,” he stammered tightly. “I hoped it’d go away, but it didn’t, it just got worse.”

“What makes it feel better or worse?” Miranda asked.

“N-nothing,” Billy half-cried.

“Can you describe the pain, and where it is?” She asked.

Billy fumbled with his right hand like it weighed a hundred pounds, and moved it to his right side, in between his ribs and hip. He decidedly didn’t touch it.

“On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate the pain?” She asked, carefully checking the area he indicated. 

“Seven?” He ventured, out-of-breath again. 

She nodded, and pulled out one of the scan thermometers. When it beeped, she glanced at it and looked up. “101 degrees,” she said. “At the moment it looks like your initial diagnosis was accurate,” she told Rosa and Victor. “They’ll usually run a CAT scan or an ultrasound before operating at the hospital, because there are a few other conditions that can mimic appendicitis, but I’m fairly confident that’s what you’re looking at here.”

“I’m assuming you’ll need to transport him?” Victor said.

“Yes,” Miranda told him, and her partner left the room to go fetch the stretcher from the ambulance. “While appendicitis is very treatable and is relatively common, it can still be a serious problem, and requires monitoring and quick care. We’ll be taking him to the closest hospital.”

Rosa gently squeezed Billy’s shoulder. “Can we send someone with him?”

“One of you may ride in the ambulance, if you’d like,” Miranda told them. “I’m afraid we can’t let anyone else on because it might prevent us from being able to work as efficiently.”

Rosa and Victor exchanged glances. “I’ll go,” Victor said. “If that’s alright with you, Billy?” 

Billy nodded quickly. 

The other paramedic returned, pushing a stretcher along. “Looks like the stairs are the only way to go,” he told Miranda, setting the stretcher up. 

She nodded, and turned to Billy. “Alright, we’re just going to help you up and on here. We’ll try to get it close as we can so you don’t have to move too far, alright?”

Billy nodded, and winced when Rosa and Victor carefully helped him sit up. Freddy gulped watching him painfully stagger over, with Victor and Miranda in close to help. The other EMT lowered the rails for him, and Billy fell onto the stretcher more than sat, and gasped in pain doing so. Miranda jumped in and quickly adjusted the rails, and lifted Billy’s legs to set them down gently. Her partner set to work strapping him in. 

“Momma?” Darla’s sleepy voice came from the hallway, Mary and Eugene following closely, trying to stop her. “What’s going on?”

“Billy’s sick, honey,” Rosa told her softly, not really hiding how worried she sounded. “These nice people are gonna take him to the hospital to get some help.”

“The hospital?” Darla half-yelped worriedly, and ran forward, Mary grabbing at her in vain. Rosa got her, though, and picked her up under the arms as Darla squirmed and frantically cried, “I have to say goodbye! Momma!”

“Okay, baby, okay.” Rosa told her, and looked at Miranda. “Can she?”

“Of course,” Miranda said, unfolding a blanket and throwing it over Billy, tucking it under the top strap.

Rosa carried Darla up to the head of the stretcher, and Darla leaned down and hugged Billy with both arms. “Bye, Billy,” she whimpered against his neck. “Don’t be scared. You’ll be okay. Okay?”

Billy had already been crying; he couldn’t quite help himself. But Darla crying brought fresh tears to his eyes, and he nodded against her hair. “Okay,” he told her shakily, trying to console her as much as she was trying to console him. He wanted to hug her back, but his arms were strapped down. After a long moment that went by far too quickly, Rosa gently pulled Darla back, and Darla let go and wrapped her arms around Rosa’s neck instead. Billy could hear her muffling her sobs into Rosa’s pajama top. He had nothing to muffle his. 

Victor straightened, and stood up off of Freddy’s bunk. Billy guessed he must have been putting his shoes on. He was still in plaid pajama pants and a tee shirt, and showed no intention of changing, or doing anything to delay any further. “We ready?” He asked the EMTs.

Miranda nodded. “If you all could clear the entryway—“

Eugene and Mary and Pedro quickly backed away from the door, outside in the hallway, and Rosa backed away, still carrying Darla, over to the desk beside Freddy. Freddy kind of wanted to either throw up or cry along with Darla, but he couldn’t take his eyes off Billy in the stretcher. As they turned it around to push him out, Billy craned his neck and looked upside-down back at Freddy, his expression terrified. 

“It’s okay, Billy,” Freddy choked out. “Victor’s gonna be with you. You’ll be fine.”

Billy didn’t look convinced, but he set his jaw and tried to look brave. And then they were out in the hallway, and Freddy clung to Rosa’s side without shame, too.

Mary ducked next to the stretcher as it passed and quickly cradled Billy’s head and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Love you,” she told him, a bit shaky, but firm. 

“Love you, too.” Billy whispered hoarsely. 

Mary pulled back, biting her lip and blinking back tears. Eugene stood back, half-pressed against Pedro. They both waved at him, hesitantly. Billy nodded back. And then they were down by the stairs. He laid his head down and stared at the ceiling going by.

They looked scared. They all looked scared. Even Rosa and Victor.

He was in real trouble this time, and he didn’t think the wizard could save him from this one. 

They stopped at the staircase to coordinate, and Miranda’s partner went down first. They did something to the gurney to raise and lower different legs, so Billy was tilted back, almost upside down. He tried hard to lay still and not to panic, and glanced up to see Victor at the top of the stairs, standing with one hand on the railing, watching worriedly. When he saw Billy was looking at him, though, he smiled, and it didn’t seem forced or faked, just strained with concern. Billy swallowed and tried to relax.

They lowered the stretcher with a bump to the main floor, and paused for a second to adjust it. Then they were hurrying out the front door, and into the cold air outside. Billy shuddered, his face stinging. The rest of him was covered by the blanket. 

Miranda’s partner jumped up into the waiting ambulance and opened both the doors, and Miranda pushed the stretcher up close. She turned her head. “Sir, if you want to go ahead and get in before us…?”

“Sure,” Victor said quickly, and carefully climbed in. As soon as he was back and settled on one of the cramped bench seats, Miranda nodded at her partner, and he leaned down to pull the head of the stretcher in while she pushed the back. Once it was in, they both disappeared somewhere below Billy to secure it, and then the doors were swinging shut, and they were moving. Billy could hear the siren turn on, slightly muffled outside. 

His stomach churned and he clenched his eyes shut and forced down a whimper. 

“Let us know how you’re doing, Billy, alright?” Miranda said, sounding like she was turned away and doing something. “If the pain gets worse, if you start feeling sick, you just let us know.”

Billy nodded shortly without opening his eyes, and tried to breathe through his nose. 

He felt them working on him still, and Miranda said, “I’m just setting up some monitors, okay? Justin there is going to start an IV with some painkillers.” She glanced back at Victor. “Is he allergic to anything?”

“Not to my knowledge,” Victor said. 

Billy swallowed hard and bit his tongue when he felt the needle go in. Thankfully, it didn’t hurt so bad after the initial pinch. 

They hit a bump, and Billy couldn’t choke back a cry at the pain in his side. There was some alarm in the compartment, though he couldn’t exactly make out what they were saying. “Sorry,” he gasped.

He managed to pick out Victor’s voice. “For what, Billy?”

“Making noise,” he panted, eyes still shut. 

He had a feeling Miranda and Justin were probably exchanging nervous glances. “Oh, Billy.” Victor said sadly. “You don’t have to be quiet. You’re hurting. None of us are mad about that, okay?”

Billy gulped, but didn’t say anything. He tried to nod.

“So, how’re you doing, bud?” Victor asked.

Billy swallowed. “Think I’m gonna be sick,” he said. 

He guessed he must have disassociated through whatever puking likely followed, because the next time he managed to open his eyes, they were unloading him. He glanced around blearily for Victor, and finally saw him standing outside the ambulance, shivering in the cold without a jacket, watching. They set Billy down on solid ground again, and he whimpered at the jarring. 

“Alrighty, kiddo,” Victor told him, closer now. Billy blinked up at him. “We made it here, at least. You did great.”

Billy tried to smile. He had a feeling it didn’t come out so good.

They brought him in the automatic doors, and it was suddenly very loud. He closed his eyes again and just tried to tune it out and focus on not being sick again. Someone had shoved a new plastic bag in his hand in case he needed it. He just clenched his fist in it, instead.  

Then they were in a different room, and it was quieter. Miranda and Justin were talking to someone, rattling off medical stuff Billy couldn’t keep up with. “Billy?” Miranda said.

He opened his eyes. She was standing there, with Justin, and another man in scrubs Billy didn’t recognize. “This is Tyler,” she told him. “He’s gonna be taking an ultrasound to make sure your appendix is what’s wrong with you. Depending on what that says, they’ll go from there, but this is where Justin and I have to head back out. You take care, okay? I hope you get better soon.”

Billy nodded. “Thanks,” he told them hoarsely.

Miranda smiled. “You’re very welcome.” She nodded at Tyler, and then she and Justin turned and left. 

“Okay, Billy.” Tyler said, stepping up and pulling over a cart with a machine. “Normally we wouldn’t be as rushed going into this, but since we’re worried about your appendix, we’re just gonna jump right into it. I’m gonna be moving your shirt and putting some gel on your abdomen. It’ll feel a bit slimy and cold. Then I’m gonna use a probe to get a look inside your stomach there and see what’s going on. That’s likely to hurt some, since that area’s inflamed and I have to put some pressure on it.”

Billy glanced around for Victor again, and found him standing over against the wall. “Okay,” he said. 

Tyler nodded and got to work unfastening the straps, and Victor came and sat down on a chair pulled next to the gurney. “Don’t worry, kiddo,” he told him. “I’ll be right here.”

Billy nodded, and almost held his breath while Tyler carefully rolled up his shirt. “Looks like there might be some swelling there,” Tyler said.

“Is that bad?” Victor asked.

“Could be an indicator that his appendix burst, not just inflamed,” Tyler said, applying the gel. Billy held still. It would have tickled if it hadn’t hurt. “Could be an indicator of other things, too, but we’ll see here in a second.” He sat down on a wheeled stool and scooted over to the cart. “I’m gonna start using the probe now, alright? You can hold your dad’s hand if it hurts too much.”

Billy wasn’t sure he wanted to. But the looming threat was there, and so was Victor. He blindly fumbled his hand by the railing on the bed, and Victor grabbed it. He didn’t hold too tight, but firm. His hand was kind of rough, but Billy didn’t say anything.

Tyler started with the probe near the middle of his stomach, and that was light pressure and it didn’t hurt. But then he moved it, slowly and carefully more toward Billy’s right side, and he clenched his eyes shut and tensed up. It seemed like the probe was pressing harder...and then it hit one spot and Billy screamed through his teeth. 

“Yep,” Tyler said tensely. “That’s ruptured, alright.” Billy guessed he must have turned to Victor. “I’m gonna have to send a copy of this to the surgeon, and then they’ll get you in within twenty minutes to prep him for surgery.”

“Alright,” Victor said, though he didn’t sound like he thought it was alright. “In between?”

“I might be able to get him more painkillers,” Tyler said. “We’ll have to see, though. It’ll only take me five minutes at most to file this, so I’ll be right back, okay? Here’s the call button. Anything changes, you hit that, and someone will be with you right away. I’ll go get that in for you.”

“Thank you,” Victor belatedly said, just as the door shut. He turned to Billy. “Hey, kiddo. You with me?”

Billy took a shaky breath and looked up. Victor looked a little teary-eyed, and it kind of made Billy feel very small and kind of awful. “Yeah,” he croaked. He glanced down and realized he was probably kind of crushing Victor’s hand. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Victor told him. “I’m alright. You’re the one who’s sick right now.”

Billy swallowed hard, and stared at the trim at the corner of the room. “It’s bad, isn’t it.”

Victor squeezed his hand, but didn’t answer right away. “It can be serious,” he told him. “You know that. But these people know how to take care of it. So they’ll do their best.”

That might not be good enough, Billy thought. He knew it was relatively rare for people to die of appendicitis, but the chances were still there, and he’d been very lucky. At least, not til this past year.

Victor squeezed his hand again. “I know you’re not comfortable with this sort of stuff, but do you mind if I pray with you?”

“I-I don’t mind if you do,” Billy mumbled. “I don’t know how to pray.”

“You don’t have to know,” Victor assured him, meeting his gaze. “You just have to mean it.”

Billy swallowed, and nodded again.

Victor shut his eyes. “Lord God,” he said, and Billy tried to stifle his desire to cringe from how uncomfortable he was. “You’ve given Billy to me and Rosa and the kids to love and take care of, but he’s your son more than he is mine, and you love him more than I ever can, though I promised and still promise to try my best. Look after him whatever happens tonight, and please just let him know he’s loved, by our family, and by you. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.”

Billy had started crying again without meaning to, somewhere around ‘to love and take care of,’ but somehow, even though he was still scared, there was an odd little feeling crawling its way up his stomach. It wasn’t the pain, and it didn’t take the pain away, but it was almost a lightness. He didn’t necessarily think he wasn’t still at risk, he didn’t feel physically or emotionally too different, but he felt, deep down, that maybe there was something, Someone, close by and far bigger than he was, and that Someone was kind. Maybe even smiling. That Someone cared for him. That Someone was looking out for him. And even if things went wrong, he felt somehow like it would be okay. Not because what happened wouldn’t be bad, but because Someone could handle it.

And now that he thought about it, maybe Someone had been looking out for him way longer than he’d thought. He had been miserable in a way, all his life. But never in a million years would he have thought he’d wind up where he was now. No one had been able to handle him before, and no one had wanted to. But somehow he’d come across Rosa and Victor, right at the time when he needed someone like them the most, right when his thread he’d been following obsessively for years broke and dropped him, and he needed something to catch him when he fell?

Maybe that hadn’t been a coincidence. Maybe it had been a kindness. Maybe Someone had known exactly what he needed, and had given it to him right when it mattered. 

“I-I never thanked you,” he stammered.

Victor opened his eyes. “For what?” 

“For taking me in,” Billy told him. “For not giving up on me.” He laughed shakily. “For not punishing me, even though I was a dick to you, and your kids, and I got Freddy in trouble, and—“

“Billy,” Victor said repeatedly, sounding sorrowful. “Billy, son, you’re a kid. You shouldn’t have to be perfect for people to treat you with kindness. You’re a person, alright? You’re a regular ole human being just like me or Rosa or anybody. Everyone started off as a kid who didn’t know what they were doing. And you’re right.” At some point in talking, Victor moved his other hand to Billy’s hair, rubbing it gently. “You weren’t perfect. You made some mistakes. But where it counted, you came back. You made the choice to accept us, and your brothers and sisters. And I’m very proud of you for that. And I’m glad you decided to make our home your home.” 

Billy sniffled and nodded sharply. Victor turned aside to blow his nose in his shirtsleeve. “Don’t tell Mom,” he told Billy, and Billy, despite himself, laughed. “Do you mind if I hug you?”

Billy shook his head, and reached his own arms out as much as he could. Victor picked up the slack where he couldn’t, and both leaned over and helped lift him up some, so he could encircle Billy carefully but securely with his big arms. Billy held on and buried his face in Victor’s tee shirt. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y’all are gonna get a cliffhanger on this one because it’s 11:00 and I have to get up at 6:00 to go back to work tomorrow, so. you’re welcome. And I made myself cry writing a chapter again. Back to my whump roots.
> 
> Anyway, I hope the Christian scenes come off okay. My faith is very important to me and this medium feels so naturally entwined with it that I can’t help but include it. I’m aware not everyone feels the same, but I hope we can all respect each other, and I will never condemn anyone choosing not to read something they don’t like.
> 
> But if you do, writing this chapter reminds me of one of my childhood heroes, Babe Ruth, and his last public message, which he wrote about his life and the role God had to play in helping him become a better person from the ragtag, abused, and cynical street kid he was born as. In that message, he says, “God had an eye out for me, just as He has for you, and He was pulling for me to make the grade.” 
> 
> The rest of it can be read here, if you’re interested. It’s a very well-written and moving last testament, and very near to my heart: https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/faith-and-character/faith-and-character/babe-ruth-s-last-message-the-kids-can-t-take-it-if-we-don-t-give-it.html
> 
> Anyway, thank you all for your lovely comments and I’m glad you’re enjoying this weird little story as much as I do. I really do enjoy this weird little movie. ❤️


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Victor has a situational heart-to-heart with super!Freddy

True to Tyler’s word, after only around ten minutes, a knock came on the door and another doctor came in and introduced himself as Dr. Khatrys, and explained they would be operating as soon as possible. They needed Victor to fill out paperwork since Billy was a minor and currently in his custody, and they needed to take Billy back for prep.

Billy wasn’t sure whether he should be glad that they were moving fast. He was still in a lot of pain, and felt sick. He was starting to notice the fever that they’d said he had; those always made him feel heavy and exhausted, in addition to far too hot. But he also was nervous to be separated from Victor, even for a couple minutes, and he was very nervous about having to be put under. 

They moved the gurney out of the darker, more office-looking exam room where the ultrasound had been, and instead moved into a brightly-lit hall full of curtained-off sections. Victor had to peel off to go with one of the administrative employees, and left with a quick squeeze of Billy’s hand and a reassurance that he’d be back as soon as possible. 

They stuck Billy’s gurney in one of the curtained-off nooks, and a very peppy nurse came and took his vitals, asked him a bunch of questions about the last time he’d eaten, whether he had any allergies that he knew of, and how he was feeling at the moment. He answered as best he could, and eventually she got done with whatever checklist she’d gone through, and pulled a blue hospital gown wrapped in plastic out of a drawer. “Do you think you can get changed by yourself, or do you need help?” She asked.

“I can do it,” Billy said quickly, even though he really wasn’t sure. But the nurse nodded and set the gown on the gurney beside him, and said, “I’ll be right outside if you need me.”

So he sat up very slowly, and tried to avoid dislodging any of the numerous monitors stuck to him, and painstakingly tugged his shirt off, which wasn’t fun. The pants weren’t fun, either, but thank God at least they weren’t jeans. He had been too hot in his pajamas, but he didn’t like how exposed he felt in the flimsy fabric, and tugged it nervously around himself even while he carefully laid back down. 

Thankfully, in only a couple minutes, Victor appeared at the curtain. “Hey, Billy.” He said, coming in and taking a seat in one of the plastic chairs next to the computer readout. “I like your new duds.”

Billy glanced down at the blue, and shrugged. “I like red better.” He said. “Blue is Freddy’s thing.” And god, did saying that make him miss Freddy even more. 

How had he let this happen to him so quickly? He’d only been living with the Vasquez’s for a month, not even, and Freddy was already the best friend he’d ever had in his life. Everything he saw, he wanted to tell Freddy about. Everything he wanted to do, he didn’t want to do it alone anymore. Hell, it couldn’t have been more than a couple hours since the whole commotion with the ambulance and leaving the house, and he was already missing Freddy and Rosa and Darla and Mary and Eugene and Pedro so much he almost couldn’t stand it. He set his jaw and tried very hard not to start crying again.

Victor must have noted it, because he looked at him sadly for a moment before glancing at the paperwork he still had and kindly giving Billy a distraction. “You don’t have any family history of high blood pressure or heart problems that you know of, do you?”

“Not a clue,” Billy gritted. He had a gross taste in his mouth and the early hour was beginning to take its toll on him. He just wanted to go home and desperately wanted to sleep. But he couldn’t. 

“Downside of all this stuff,” Victor nodded knowingly, scribbling something down. “I really think they should require at least a bare minimum of medical history before giving a kid up. Do you know, I was actually at high risk for an eye disease my whole life and didn’t have a clue? If they hadn’t caught it quick enough I could’ve lost most if not all of my sight. Genetic. Didn’t know.”

Billy swallowed. “How  _ did _ you wind up a foster kid?”

Victor stopped writing and glanced up at Billy. He set the clipboard down on his thigh. “Well,” he said, sitting back. “My dad was not the best boyfriend my mom ever had, we’ll say that much to start with. He was kind of an idiot, though I try to cut him some slack because they were both young. They were military brats in Hawaii, and they didn’t really know anything about what you should and shouldn’t do when you’re dating as teenagers. Hence, me enters the scene. Unexpectedly, and kind of unwantedly. My  _ ‘dad,’” _ Victor used air quotes, “decided to run off and join the military himself to get away from the knowledge that he’d been so stupid as to father a child at seventeen, and to avoid the consequences of such. My mom…her father was not a particularly good person, either. She was terrified of him. Thankfully, he was overseas when she was pregnant. Her mom was too busy to care. So when I was born, she turned over custody of me to the state, and I bounced everywhere until I eventually grew out of it and wound up living in a van in northern California. Then I ran into Rosa at a Mexican food fundraiser for Cinco De Mayo at church and the rest is history.”

Billy blinked. “Wow,” he said. “...That, uh. Doesn’t sound like the rest.”

Victor chuckled. “Well, a lot more happened than that, but I don’t think I’ll have time to get into it all today. I actually wound up reconnecting with my mom, several years ago. She’s a bit better off now. But I think she was a little stunned and overwhelmed by me in general, though.” Victor laughed. “Here she couldn’t bear the thought of handling  _ one _ child, and I’m like ‘give me all of them.’ Culture shock, for sure.” 

“Yeah,” Billy mumbled, thinking of his mom. They’d only spoken for five minutes, at most. There had been so many things he’d hoped to do and say and find out when he found her again, but he’d come away with more questions than answers. His dad was in jail, and his mom had had him when she was seventeen? That was only a few years older than he was right now, for crying out loud. Was his dad her age? Or older? He shuddered to think. He’d never worried about his dad before, never so much as thought about him. He’d almost forgotten he had one.

Victor seemed to guess what he was thinking about. “You said your mom was living with someone? Someone…” he worried his lip for a second. “Not good?”

Billy shrugged listlessly. “I never saw him,” he mumbled. “Just heard yelling.”

“That’s not good in any situation.” Victor said. “Not your dad, though?”

Billy shook his head. “No. Eugene told me my dad is in prison. In Florida, apparently.”

“So you were born in Minnesota and wound up in Philly, and your dad’s in jail in Florida.” Victor remarked. “You’ve been quite the country-hopper.” 

“Not on purpose.” Billy sighed.

“Yeah.” Victor glanced at the clipboard again, checking it over. “I’ve gotta get Eugene to stop hacking into databases. One of these days the Fed’s gonna come knocking on my door with a battering ram.”  

Billy hummed in response, but didn’t say anything. He shut his eyes and tried not to think about how bad he felt. After a minute, he felt a hand in his hair. “Hang in there, kiddo.” Victor murmured. “We’ll be over this soon.”

He hoped so. 

But he wasn’t particularly happy when the room was invaded by medical personnel again, and there was renewed sensor placing and new IVs put in and more talking, and was especially not happy when they addressed him and told him they were going to take him back in a few minutes and Victor couldn’t come. 

Victor hugged him again, and didn’t say anything when Billy clung particularly tightly. “You’re gonna be fine, Billy. I’ll see you as soon as you wake up, okay?”

“Okay,” Billy whispered, and tried to keep his voice from shaking too much. He wasn’t ready to let go when they got started moving the gurney. He forced an awkward little wave as they pushed him off, which Victor returned. 

They put him in a relatively blank room with white walls and a lot of machinery and he tried very hard not to look at anything. 

“We’re just gonna get a nasal cannula in, and we’ll be giving you anesthesia through that, okay?” One of the nurses told him.

It wasn’t particularly okay with him, but he didn’t have a choice. He held still when the nurse draped the thing around his head and adjusted it. “I’m gonna turn it on in a second here. Just take deep breaths. You might feel a little dizzy and it might be hard to swallow, but you should fall asleep pretty quickly, alright?”

He heard the slight hiss when they turned it on, and right away he could tell a difference. It felt like he was being pressed down onto the bed by a giant hand. He was more than a little unsettled by how fast it worked, and how quickly he slipped down towards passing out, but he was relieved at the pain finally muting for the first time in hours, and being able to drift off to sleep again, like he’d been wanting to since this whole mess started. The last thing he saw was the very blurry, bright shape of the lamp hanging in the center of the room. 

And then the next thing he knew, there was some sort of light somewhere very far away that was bothering him, but he didn’t really have a chance to properly ignore it because he heard his name. It took him a good minute or two to blink his lashes open to slits, and he could barely see out of them.

He heard a relieved exhale. “Hey, kiddo. There you are. How you feeling?”

He furrowed his brows weakly. His face felt numb and tingly, and his whole body still felt vaguely crushed. “Victor?”

“Yeah, it’s me.” He suddenly realized his hand was being held. “It’s all over with, Billy. You did great.”

Billy blinked heavily a couple times—his eyes felt sandy and dry—and shifted slightly. That hurt, and he winced. 

“Don’t try moving around too much yet,” Victor told him wryly. “You just got done maybe forty minutes ago. I’ve been in here sitting with you for twenty of them.”

“What time ‘s it?” Billy mumbled. 

Victor glanced at the clock on the wall. “Like 6:00 in the morning. Too early for either of us, if I’m honest.”

Billy exhaled noisily, and let his eyes fall closed again. “When can we go  _ home?”  _ It was almost a whine by the end. Not quite.

But he heard Victor smiling when he said, apologetically, “Not for a while, bud. You’ve still gotta be monitored the rest of the day. If you’re good tomorrow, they’ll prescribe some antibiotics and I can take you home then. But in the meantime, Rosa’s assured me she’ll be coming over here as soon as she drops the kids off, and I’ll bring them by after school if you want. Okay?”

“Okay,” Billy whispered. That did sound good. 

“Great.” Victor said, and squeezed his hand between both of his own. Billy tried to squeeze back, but he had a feeling his hand didn’t do much. “In the meantime, how bout you catch up on some sleep, hmm?”

“Yeah,” Billy mumbled, already halfway there. “Sounds great.”

___

 

When the ambulance pulled away from their house, Freddy watched it disappear out the upstairs window. Soon even the sirens weren’t audible anymore. Freddy swallowed hard and turned quickly away, tapping his way down the hall way faster than he should’ve. He hoped moving would stop his hands from twitching and his legs from shaking. 

Rosa had come out of their empty bedroom and was standing in the hallway. Darla was still clinging to her, her head on Rosa’s shoulder. Freddy could hear her sniffling occasionally. Mary was a bit further down, near the top of the stairs, twisting the cuffs of her shirtsleeves in her hands until they were knotted in little bunches and letting them go and doing it over again. Pedro was sitting on the top step, and Eugene was sitting on the floor with his back to the railing. None of them spoke, glancing at each other like they were afraid to make noise. 

Rosa was the first one to exhale, and it sounded startlingly loud. “We...we should probably try to go back to bed, ninõs,” she told them, rubbing a hand back and forth on Darla’s pajama top. “You all still have school in the morning.”

“I can’t go to school like this!” Freddy burst out, without even meaning to. His voice cracked halfway through, and he wished he hadn’t made a sound, because Rosa shot the saddest look at him and he just wanted to run back into his room and collapse across his bed and bawl his eyes out.

“I-I don’t wanna go back to bed, either,” Pedro mumbled, and Freddy winced. Pedro’s dad had died by suicide, so he had a lot of bad memories associated with emergency response. 

“What if something happens?” Eugene asked, looking back at Rosa pleadingly. “How’ll we know if we’re all in bed?” 

“I know you’re worried, kids.” Rosa told them. “I am, too. But there’s no point in standing around the hallway all night. If we do need to know anything, Victor will call or text me. And it will take time, no matter what we are doing here.” She took in the worried faces, and her expression softened. “Tell you what. How about we all go downstairs and sit in the living room? That way we’ll all be in the same place if we do hear anything. And,” she glanced at Darla on her shoulder, whose sniffles had turned into shuddering snores, “so some of us can sleep if they need to?” 

No one had an objection, so in an odd little pajama-clad procession, they made their way down the staircase and into the dark living room. They’d taken the tree down a couple weeks before, so Rosa went into the kitchen and switched on the light above the sink, which gave just enough light to see by, without blinding anyone or waking them up too much. She laid Darla down against the arm of one of the couches, and covered her with the throw that sat on the back of the chair. Darla made a snuffly little noise and curled up tighter, and drifted back off.

Freddy carefully sat down on the floor in front of Rosa, and leaned his head against her leg. Mary and Eugene cuddled up on the other couch with Pedro. 

“Poor Billy,” Mary whispered. “He looked so scared, and he was trying so hard to hide it.”

“He looked like he was hurting, too,” Eugene mumbled, eyes downcast.

“It isn’t fun, is it?” Rosa said gently. “To know someone you care about is in pain, and you can’t make it go away. But you can always make it easier to carry, and we’ll do that for Billy whenever he comes home.”

“How long till he  _ can _ come home?” Pedro asked.

Rosa cupped her hands in the equivalent of a shrug. “I don’t know, mijo. It will probably be a day or so.”

Rosa’s phone buzzed, and the entire room tensed up. She pulled it out of her shirt pocket with shaky hands. Then she relaxed. “He’s just letting us know they got there safely. They’re waiting to get a scan.”

Even Mary exhaled raggedly. It was like that extra stressor had drained all the fire out of them. Eugene fell asleep leaned against Mary, and Pedro followed suit. Mary stayed awake a little longer, but eventually fell asleep with her head on top of Eugene’s. Soon it was just Rosa and Freddy awake.

“I miss him, Rosa.” Freddy said miserably. Rosa was combing through his hair absently as he sat there on the floor, temple against her calf. “He’s only been gone like, an hour, and I miss him.”

She sighed, and leaned down to press a kiss to his cheek. “I know, sweetheart. I know.”

Freddy blinked, and a couple tears rolled down his cheeks. He didn’t let more than that escape, and scrubbed them away with his sleeve. He sat there in the dark, and before long Rosa was asleep, too, and it was just him there, alone in the living room.

He sat there and listened to the clock ticking, and he wondered what was happening to Billy at every second. He wished he could be there.

Actually. Now that he thought about it...he looked around and took in his sleeping siblings, and his sleeping mom.

He had superpowers now. Billy had given them to him. Billy had given him his dream. Why  _ couldn’t _ he just fly over there?

Very cautiously, he got his cane under him and climbed to his feet, taking great care not to make too much noise or bump into anyone. Rosa didn’t stir, and neither did any of the others. He made his way to the back door, and quietly opened it, and stepped out into the cold air.

He squared his shoulders, and took a deep breath. Then he hurried down the steps and across the yard, just to make double sure the others didn’t wake up. Then he looked up at the sky and said, “Shazam.”

—

 

Freddy realized belatedly that he actually had no clue which hospital Billy had been taken to. He remembered the paramedics saying something about the closest hospital, and with a birds eye view, it was easier to tell which hospitals were closer to their house. He decided to hit the closest one, first.

Since he hadn’t thought to bring the trench coat, he decided to try the direct approach. He flew in the regular, non-emergency entrance at a casual rate. It was fairly deserted at this hour, but he still got some stares, from the few people hanging around playing idly with their phones, to the janitor. It made him uncomfortable, and he suddenly felt a lot more sympathetic for Billy having to deal with being a center of attention the entire time he was transformed. 

Freddy knew more than he’d like to know about the layout of hospitals, but he still wasn’t sure where Billy would be, if he was even here—which was why it was a stroke of luck when he went in the general direction of the surgical wing and happened to float past a waiting room and spot Victor through the door. He sighed in relief and flew over to the door, gently pushing it open. 

Victor was sitting with his hands folded, hanging off his knees, leaned over in the chair, staring at nothing. Freddy had never seen him like this before and it made his heart pound in his chest. But he flew closer and cleared his throat. “Ahem.”

Victor blinked, and glanced over, and promptly sat bolt upright, startled. “Uh, who are—“

“Good, uh. Evening, citizen?” Freddy said, cursing in his head. “I was just, um, in the neighborhood on my superhero duties, and happened to notice you sitting here all by yourself looking rather dejected. Is anything the matter?”

“Yeah,” Victor said listlessly, seeming less alarmed and more resigned, which said more about his home life than anything Freddy could think of to explain it. “My son’s in surgery right now. Appendix.”

“Surgery?” Freddy didn’t have to fake the horror, but he did have to fake the surprised alarm. “That’s awful!”

Victor nodded silently. “Yeah,” he sighed.

Freddy hesitantly hovered over and lowered down on the chair next to Victor. “If you don’t mind my asking,” he said. “You seem a little more upset than I’d think you should be over a fairly normal medical crisis.” He gulped. “Is something else wrong?” 

Victor sighed again. Freddy was alarmed. He’d never seen him act like this before. “I’m just thinking about how I told him off a few weeks ago. You think you’re comfortable with how you acted, but then something like this happens, and...you kind of wonder, you know?”

“Told him off?” Freddy asked, genuinely confused.

“Yeah.” Victor glanced at his clenched hands. “He’d—well, you see, he’s not my biological son, he’s my foster son. He just got here, too, only a couple weeks before Christmastime. And he’s kind of a troublemaker, but my wife and I, we knew that even before we took him in. I never intended to give up on him, and I didn’t, but I do think I was a little rough on him. He’d been encouraging our other son to skip school, but that’s the thing; Freddy, our other son, he doesn’t  _ need _ encouraging to get into mischief sometimes. He’s a great kid, and I love him to death, but he’s no angel, himself. I don’t know why I made it about that.” Victor rubbed his face tiredly. “I know he’s gonna be fine. I know he’s  _ likely _ to be fine. But I can’t help but wonder if. If I’d be comfortable with how I handled things if I only got one chance to get it right, and I blew it.”

“Adu—“ Freddy cut himself off.  _ “You _ feel like that, too, sometimes?”

“Of course,” Victor said, looking at him, now. “Everybody does. Just because you know better doesn’t mean you can automatically shut off your normal reaction. I fight back irrational worries all the time. But it’s even worse when the worries….aren’t necessarily irrational.”

Freddy swallowed hard. “Yeah.” 

There was a beat of silence between them, with no noise aside from the clock ticking and the air system running. “I just feel so bad for him,” Victor said quietly. “Do you know, on the way here we hit a bump and he cried out, and it hurt him bad enough he was kind of half-conscious for a minute, and when he came out of it he apologized for making any noise?”

“Damn,” Freddy mumbled.

“I know,” Victor agreed, and turned back to staring at the opposite wall. “I just wonder what on earth happened to that poor kid to make him think...to make him act like no one could ever want to so much as put up with him, let alone really care about him. And I just, I don’t want to make it worse.”

“I don’t think you do,” Freddy said quietly, thinking of how he’d seen Billy react to being scolded, and thinking of the sort of regard Billy seemed to hold Victor in, once he got to know him. “I think maybe, maybe the level you’re doing is exactly what a kid like your son really needs. Not too lax, and letting him get away with things he shouldn’t, but not too harsh, either. I think he understands that he’s sort of messed up, and he wants to do better. He wants to get better. And most importantly, I think he knows you’re there to help him in that, not stop him.”

“Well, I have absolutely no idea  _ how _ you would know any of that, but as pep talks go that wasn’t bad,” Victor remarked. He glanced sideways at Freddy with a wry grin. “I appreciate it.”

“Don’t mention it,” Freddy said uncomfortably, wondering if Victor could see right through him or not. 

The two of them sat there amiably for a while. “Say, you want some coffee?” Freddy said out of nowhere. 

Victor started, and blinked rapidly. Freddy guessed he’d probably been half-dozed-off. “Uh, sure?”

Freddy levitated off the chair and floated upright, and Victor added, “I usually take it with two creamers—“

“I know,” Freddy said over his shoulder, and immediately stopped short, screaming to the heavens internally and pursing his lips.

“...How do you know that?” Victor asked, a little disturbed.

“You ah,” Freddy glanced back, with a plastered-on grin, “just looked like a two creamers kinda guy. When I flew by you I thought, ‘now  _ there’s _ a two-creamer’s type of man if ever I’ve seen one!’ And I have. Because I’m a. Superhero and whatever.” He dropped his hand. “...I’ll be right back.”

He flew the whole way to the cafeteria considering worst case scenarios. It just made sense to plan for, anyway. Rosa and Victor weren’t dumb. Eventually, it was more than likely that they’d either figure it out themselves, or circumstances would force the kids to tell them directly. But Freddy couldn’t help but wonder what would happen as a result. Would they bar them from doing it? Victor and Rosa wouldn’t take that from them, would they? They wouldn’t take  _ this _ from him, his dream, being able to fly, not trapped by his cane anymore? They couldn’t do that, could they? Would they? 

He was so worked up he almost overfilled the little foam coffee cup. But he didn’t. And he didn't forget the two creamers.

He flew back to the waiting room and offered one cup to Victor. The other he kept for himself. He’d filled it with black coffee, both in the hopes of appearing like an adult, and in the hopes that it’d wake him up enough to stand the rest of this vigil, however long it lasted. The result was that Victor was treated to some presumably remarkable facial expressions, if he was even awake and paying enough attention to Freddy to notice them.

Honestly, Victor was the first person he’d seen yet whose reaction to one of their super forms was a. Non-reaction, almost. Everyone else either stared or freaked out, but Victor seemed to take the neon-blue spandex and white cape in stride. He didn’t have a hint of nervousness to his body language in regards to Freddy sitting beside him. It was kind of amazing.  

Victor drained the last of his cup. “Thanks for that.”

“Sure,” Freddy replied tiredly. He had barely drank a quarter of his. 

Victor adjusted positions and sat back with a sigh. “Why were you ‘in the neighborhood on superhero duties,’ if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Uh,” Freddy said, panicking internally. What could he say? “I, um.” He played with his cup. “I...couldn’t sleep.” He said after a minute.

Victor raised an eyebrow. “You need sleep?”

“Unfortunately yes.” Freddy told him, and Victor made an understanding noise. There was another beat, and Freddy sighed. “I’m worried about my brother.”

Victor glanced at him, concerned. “Your brother?”

“Yeah.” Freddy said. “Something happened and I’m worried whether he’s gonna be okay. I couldn't stand sitting around and waiting, you know? So I thought I’d fly around some. Try to keep my head clear.” 

“Makes sense.” Victor said. “It must be tough to be stressed about family on top of all the superhero stuff.”

“My brother’s a superhero, too.” Freddy said, out of nowhere. “He actually gave me my powers. But this...is the sort of thing I’m not sure even being a superhero can save you from, and it scared me.” Freddy stared into his cold coffee. “I always sort of thought that being a superhero would fix everything, and make everything less scary. But I think I’ve been more scared since I first met a superhero than I’ve ever been in my life.” 

“Sounds like what I thought being an adult would be like.” Victor leaned back against the wall, arms folded over his chest. “When I was growing up, I was a foster kid, and everything sucked. Well, you know, everything didn’t  _ actually _ suck, but that was how it felt. And I’d always hear the social workers telling me, ‘just til you’re eighteen, when you’re eighteen, blah blah blah.’ I had this idea that when I was finally eighteen,  _ then _ I could do what I wanted, then I could live my own life and fix everything,  _ then _ I’d magically know the right thing to do and the right way to handle everything. Guess what? I turned eighteen and I was still just as clueless and helpless about all things adult as I was at seventeen. But why did I ever expect any different, and why did anyone make me think any different? There are people in their fifties and above who still don’t know basic decency. Age doesn’t instantly make you wise or capable. It’s like everything else. You have to accept that you’re not gonna know how to handle everything right away, and you’ve gotta stick your chin up and do your best. Being an adult doesn’t magically give you the ability to handle everything anymore than being a superhero does. You’ve gotta take the good things with the bad, no matter who you are.” Victor patted his leg offhandedly. “Just don’t beat yourself up for the learning curve.”

“Thanks,” Freddy said, a little shaken. He drained the rest of his coffee all in one gulp and stifled a very overstimulated noise. He crushed his foam cup and pitched it into the trash can from across the room. He’d wanted to stay until he heard something about Billy, but he didn’t know what he would do after that, and he was suddenly crashing from the sudden fright and the missed sleep. “I’d, uh. Better be going. Crime never sleeps and all.”

Victor glanced at him sympathetically, and nodded. “Thanks for the company, and the coffee.” He reached up and patted Freddy’s shoulder. “I hope your brother’s okay.” 

Freddy blinked at Victor, and cursed himself, and went in for the hug. Victor was clearly a little startled, but he was also a born empath, and it didn’t take him a moment to loosen up and dig in enthusiastically. And the funny part was, even though Freddy was taller and buffer and looked nothing like himself, a hug from Victor felt exactly the same.

“Take care of yourself,” Freddy exhaled into Victor’s shoulder, patting his back roughly. “You’re a good man.”

“Uh...thanks? I think?” Victor said bemusedly, letting Freddy go when he pulled back. He shot finger guns up at Freddy. “Same to you.”

Freddy nodded awkwardly, and turned to fly away. He got right outside the door to the waiting room when he heard someone coming, and he listened in to the surgeon. “Victor Vasquez? Here for Billy Batson? He did great. As you’d been previously told, his appendix had ruptured, so we’ll be prescribing him some antibiotics when he’s discharged, in addition to intravenous antibiotics while he’s here. His vitals held steady the whole surgery and we managed to get all of it in one go, so that’s good. We’ve brought him to recovery and you can come back and sit with him in a few minutes here, if you like. Though I will warn you, it’ll take likely another hour for the anesthesia to wear off fully. He’s pretty much asleep right now.” 

“That’s great to hear,” Victor said, and Freddy could hear the relief in his voice. “Just let me know when you want me to come back with him.” 

Freddy tried and failed to suppress a smile. Then he flew down the hallways, ready to make his way home. 

___

 

When Billy woke up the second time after surgery, Rosa was by his bedside instead of Victor. And as soon as she saw him awake, she shut her book and leaned over. “Billy, mijo, how are you feeling?” She asked softly, and stroked his hair again. “I was so worried last night.”

Billy swallowed. “Better, I think.” He told her. And he did feel a bit better. He still sort of felt like he’d been beaten, but at least the sharp pain was gone in his side. It had been replaced by a dull, deep-seated ache, but that he could handle. Plus, he had pain meds tapped into his arm. 

Rosa leaned down and lightly kissed his crown. “Bueno. I’m glad.” 

She picked up her phone and glanced at it. “Are you up for a visit from the kids?”

“Of course,” Billy said, a little breathlessly. He was still trying to wrap his head around Rosa just being there. It was everything he’d ever hoped finding his mom would bring him, and he hadn’t even asked for it.

Her phone buzzed again, and she laughed suddenly, like even she was surprised. “Except Freddy, I guess.”

Billy’s face twisted with concern. “Why not?” He asked.

Rosa, biting her lip to stifle a smile, turned her phone and showed him a photo Victor had snapped of Freddy absolutely sacked out asleep in the back seat of the van. “I don’t think he slept too well last night,” Rosa said, her voice a mix of sad and fond. “He was worried.” 

Billy hesitantly smiled, too. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just barely managed to grind this out painfully before 9:30 and it is VERY wordy. im tired.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The foster kids visit the hospital, and Billy has a panic attack and comes home.

Before lunchtime, they moved Billy from recovery to a normal room. Rosa went with him, and just kept him company. They talked when Billy was awake, but he slept a lot; the late night and the stress and the surgery combined wore him out, and since it was quiet and he was stuck in bed anyway, it was easy to fall asleep frequently. Rosa seemed to take it in stride, and did anything from reading to scrolling on her phone to crocheting while she waited. 

Lunch left a bit to be desired; it was just applesauce and toast. Rosa told him they would just start him off easy after the surgery and as soon as they went home she would be sure to get him better food if he was allowed to have it. Billy accepted it and nibbled away at the toast reluctantly. 

After lunch he was a little bit more awake, and the hours seemed to drag on before it finally got to 3 o’clock and school was out. Not long after that, Rosa got a text letting her know that Victor was on his way over to the hospital with the kids. It wasn’t too long after that that there was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” Rosa called, glancing up. The door opened, and Victor was there. “Hi, hon,” he told Rosa. “Hey, Billy.”

Billy waved to Victor, and kind of leaned forward and craned his head to see behind him as much as he could. The other kids were in a tight huddle behind Victor in the doorway, stuck between the hallway and the room itself. 

“Come on in, guys, it’s okay.” Victor told them, opening the door a bit wider behind him. Mary ducked under his arm and stepped in first. Darla was clinging to her hand and looking around anxiously. 

Rosa got up and went over to her. “Hey, baby,” she told her, bending over to hug her. Darla clung to her sweater, and finally glanced up over her shoulder at Billy, a little hesitantly. Billy smiled at her. She looked really scared, and it made him feel bad. He didn’t want her to look like that, or to feel like that. 

Rosa straightened. “There’s not quite enough seating here for all of us,” she said briskly, dragging one of the chairs from the little table in the entryway over closer to the bed, “but I doubt they had a group our size in mind when designing these rooms.” She set the chair down and hurried over to the remaining kids. “Freddy, sweetheart—“

“I’m fine,” he groused without heat, but he let Rosa lead him over to one of the armchairs next to the bed and deposit him in it. Mary, meanwhile, came over and crouched beside the bed, leaning her elbow on the railing. “How are you feeling?” She asked, looking Billy over with concern. 

“Better,” he told her honestly. “...Better enough I wish I wasn’t stuck here another night,” he added, when she still didn’t relax. 

She smiled, so it worked. “I’ll bet. I was going stir crazy today just at home.”

Darla was standing alone by the foot of the bed, worrying her hands and glancing around nervously. 

“You wanna come up here?” Billy asked her.

She started, and stared at him. She glanced back at Victor. “Can I?”

“Sure, baby,” Victor told her. “Just try not to bump any of his wires or anything, okay?”

Darla nodded seriously, and hopped onto the foot of the bed, pulling herself up all the way and settling in. She crossed her legs and sat up straight. Then she squinted intensely at all the wires and sensors Billy was covered with. He had an IV in one hand, a tube running from that up to a bag on a hanger beside the bed, a thing clipped to his finger with another wire, two heart monitor nodes attached to his chest in different places with wires running out of the gown, and a nasal cannula. He’d had a mask initially, and they’d switched to the cannula after the surgery. The nurses said they’d probably take him off the oxygen before bed if his levels were good, and he hoped they were, because the stupid thing was driving him nuts. 

“He’s got wires all over him, though.” Darla said at Victor. Victor missed it because he was busy answering something Rosa said and checking his phone.

“I don’t have any here,” Billy told her, and lifted his left arm carefully. Darla still looked hesitant, like she was afraid of hurting him, but cautiously scooched forward on the bed until she’d inched her way up under his arm. Billy pushed himself up a bit with his other hand against the mattress—very carefully, because the stitches were on that side and he’d already found it to be tender and less reliable than usual—and wrapped his left arm around Darla’s shoulders, pulling her gently against him. She folded up almost reflexively, used to being cuddled at home. She reached her arms up and half-hugged him back, then just grabbed a fistful of his gown and held on. “I missed you this morning,” she told him. “I didn’t get my before-school hug.”

“I’m sorry,” Billy told her, and he was. He squeezed his arm around her lightly. “Is it okay if I make up for it now?”

“Uh huh,” Darla said, and tucked her face against his side. 

Billy glanced back up at Mary, who smiled warmly at Darla and then at him. He returned it, then looked over her shoulder for the others. Rosa and Victor were chatting quietly near the doorway, Pedro had sat down on the armchair Rosa had been in and Eugene perched on the arm, and Freddy was sitting behind Mary, and looking at Billy with the same apprehension all the kids had. He was avoiding eye contact and was mostly focusing on Billy’s body, like he was making sure it was whole and intact and not torn up or otherwise broken, like you’d almost expect if you’d heard him sobbing in pain in the middle of the night. 

“Hey, Freddy,” he said, drawing his attention. “How was school?”

“No idea. I was asleep through half of it.” Freddy said tiredly, and now that he mentioned it, he did have some impressive dark circles going on. He was also wearing an oversized rugby shirt and his hair was even messier than usual, and he was kind of propped up on his cane, even in the chair. 

He would’ve looked comical if Billy hadn’t known he’d probably been stressed out of his mind half the night.

“You look worse than I feel,” he told him.

“Great,” Freddy said back, flopping his head forward against his arm. “Wake me when we can all go home.” 

Mary patted Freddy’s arm. “He was worried.” She told Billy.

“Uh, _yeah.”_ Freddy said, muffled and indignant. “He had to go have some doctor shred his insides up with like an ice pick or something.”

“What’s an ice pick?” Darla asked nervously. 

“It’s a tool they used to use to cut ice out of lakes, Darla, and for the record, it looks nothing like surgical equipment,” Mary said pointedly, glancing at Freddy, who escaped the scold-look by having his face buried in his elbow. 

“Says you,” Freddy snarked, still muffled. “I know a little something about surgeries myself, thank you.”

“School was school.” Pedro said flatly. “You didn’t miss much.”

 _“Anything,”_ Eugene added, and ignored Mary’s disapproving look.

“Lucky you, you get to avoid going back for days,” Freddy said.

 _“Days?”_ Billy asked, aghast. He must have been alarmed enough to draw Rosa and Victor’s attention, because Rosa tilted her head and stood on her tiptoes to look over at him. “What now, mi amor?” She asked.

“I just.” Billy stammered. “Didn’t I, um. Already use up all my absences?”

Rosa shook her head. “No, sweetheart. The surgeon sent a note to the school. You are not in trouble for not being there.”

“Yep,” Victor added, wrapping an arm around Rosa’s shoulder. “Probably won’t be going back til Friday at the earliest, and maybe not even then. We might just wait until Monday.”

Billy took that in. He uncomfortably fingered the edges of the blanket he was tucked under. “I. I don’t feel _that_ bad,” he mumbled. 

Victor and Rosa exchanged glances. “And that’s a good thing!” Victor said. “But, champ, no matter how good you feel, you did just have major surgery, and that puts you at risk for infection. And also, you’re gonna need some time to rest and get over it without having to move around too much. So you get to hang out at home with Rosa and me for a few days. But don’t worry about it; I’m sure Freddy’ll be glad to help keep you up to date on the homework. Won’t you, Freddy?” 

Freddy grinned evilly, which was response enough. Billy groaned. 

“Enough bullying the child,” Victor chuckled. “You guys brought a deck of cards, right?”

“Yep!” Darla hopped up onto her knees and clambered across the bed for her backpack at the foot of it, and rummaged through it until she brandished a small paper box. Billy almost thought it was a cigarette carton at first glance. 

“What should we play?” Eugene asked, as Darla crawled back over to Billy and settled against his side again.

“I don’t think any of the usual games will work. Unless somebody just hands Billy his cards…” Mary said, and Billy must have looked blank, because she met his gaze with a look of resignation. “You’ve never played with cards much before, have you.” It wasn’t a question.

Billy shook his head silently.

Mary had a pinched look on her face for a split-second. Then she scooted her chair closer and gently took the carton from Darla. “Okay, this one is the jack, this one is the queen, this one is the king, this one is the ace.”

“Let’s play mafia!” Freddy suggested. “That doesn’t need any moving around.”

“Good idea, Freddy.” Rosa told him approvingly. 

“Play what now?” Billy asked, a little disconcerted.

He was answered by an instant and unanimous cry of disgust and dismay from the siblings. 

“If I ever run into that mother of yours on the subway,” Mary muttered. Thankfully she didn’t finish.

“Mafia’s awesome, dude.” Freddy said. “It’s funny as hell.”

“Pedro’s the narrator!” Darla said excitedly.

Billy glanced at Pedro, who just looked. Well. Expressionless as always. Until he glanced sidelong at Billy and subtly rolled his eyes. 

“You can switch around who does what part, but Pedro’s the most entertaining narrator.” Mary explained.

Billy was curious to see how. 

“Rosa, Victor, you guys have to play too or it’ll be too easy to tell who’s who,” Eugene called at them, and they obediently made their way over closer. Mary dropped the deck of cards into her hand and shuffled them. She then went around the room and distributed one to each of them. She handed an extra card to Pedro and had him look at it before she gave it to Billy. When she moved on, Pedro wandered over. “You’ve just got a regular card, so you’re a villager.” He told him, very quietly.

“Okay.” Billy said blankly.

Pedro nodded solemnly at him and wandered back to his chair.

Mary finished distributing the cards, and leaned on the back of Eugene’s chair. Pedro took the cue and sat up and cleared his throat. “Everybody have their cards?” There was a chorus of assents. “Everybody know what they are?” Agreement. “Alright then. Town asleep.”

Billy glanced around awkwardly when everyone else shut their eyes nearly in unison. He glanced at Pedro. 

“That means everybody closes their eyes so the mafia can do their dirty work without us knowing who they are.” Pedro told him.

“Oh,” Billy said, and shut his eyes.

“Mafia, wake up,” Pedro said. “Who’d you like to kill?”

A pause. Billy tried very hard to abide by the rules and not to peek. “You sure? Alright. Mafia asleep. Sheriff? Who’d you like to know about?” Another pause. “Sheriff asleep. Nurse? Who’d you like to save? Alright, nurse asleep. Town, awaken!”

Billy snapped his eyes open quicker than anyone else did. Everyone sat up and blinked and waited patiently to hear the results of the round. Pedro straightened up in his chair and gathered himself to speak. 

“Last night in the town of Pleasantville, things were not so pleasant.” He announced, in a sinister tone. “The mafia, sinking to a new low, decided to kick the average man while he was down, and targeted a kid who was ALREADY LAID UP IN THE HOSPITAL!”

Eugene gasped, and everybody glanced at Billy, who wasn’t sure what to make of this development, aside from a strong sense of discomfort and a little bit of pessimism. _Of course_ the mafia targeted him.

 _“But!”_ Pedro interjected. “The kindly nurse decided to intervene and save his life! So Billy survived the mafia!”

“Yay, Billy!” Mary clapped, and the others joined in. Billy shrugged very lightly. “Yay me,” he said lamely, with a dismissive little wave. 

“Alright then, town asleep again.” 

The end of that game revealed that Freddy was the mafia (big shock there), Darla was the nurse (again, who would have thought), and Mary was the Sheriff. They played another round, and then switched to Go Fish. They played I Spy and charades. The hours slipped away until it got close to dinnertime.

“Well, I guess it’s time to switch off again,” Victor finally said, wandering over from where he’d stood, glancing out the dark window at the sparkling city lights outside. “Rosa will take you all home to have supper and get ready for school in the morning, and I’ll see about staying here with Billy.”

There were a few groans and protests from the kids, but everyone obediently got their jackets and unwound from their positions around the room. They’d had to move a few times to accommodate the nurses when they came in to check on Billy. Billy watched everyone reluctantly putting on their gloves and hats, and tried to stifle the unfamiliar dejected feeling twisting in his stomach and tightening in his chest.

Rosa came over first, and bent and gently kissed his forehead. “Good night, mi amor,” she told him softly. “Sleep well, sweetheart.”

Billy tried to smile for her. He had a feeling he didn’t quite manage it, but she gently squeezed his hand anyway before letting go. Darla and Mary were behind her. Darla let go of Mary’s hand to throw her arms around Billy, and he managed to sit up enough to hug her back, careful to keep slack in the IV line. “Bye, Billy. I’ll miss you til you come home tomorrow.”

“Bye, Darla.” He told her. When they both unwillingly let go, he forced a smile for her. “Have fun at school.”

“I will,” she told him earnestly. “Dylan Jones and I are making a clay model together.”

With that, she stepped off to the side and let Mary have her turn for a hug. Mary’s hugs were somehow very secure despite her slight build, and Billy laid his head against her jacket for a second. It didn’t escape Mary’s notice, and she gently petted his hair. “You’ll be home before you know it,” she told him quietly. 

“Thanks,” he whispered when she pulled back. 

She nodded, and smiled, and grabbed Darla’s hand again. Eugene came up and grabbed him in a hug before he had time to prepare. “Come home soon,” Eugene said. “It’s super boring without you.”

“Okay?” Billy said, a little confused and a little short on air. He patted Eugene’s back anyway. Eugene nodded shortly at him and moved on.

Pedro stepped up. He extended his fist. “I don’t do hugs,” he explained simply. Billy blinked and bumped fists with him. Pedro nodded and went to the side.

Last of all was Freddy, who had his hat on crooked and was kind of crammed into his jacket. Billy wasn’t sure what to expect, but he’d had a hug from Freddy once before, so he wasn’t absolutely floored when the younger boy went for one. “I miss you at home, man.” Freddy told him. “I can hear all sorts of weird house noises without your snoring.”

“You mean _your_ snoring?” Billy asked wryly, laying back when Freddy released the hug. 

“Everyone gangs up on me.” Freddy rolled his eyes. He gave Billy a weird mix of a salute and a wave, and made his way over to join the others, waiting for him at the door. 

“Good night, everybody!” Victor waved to them, seated in the armchair beside the bed again. 

There was a chorus of ‘good nights!’ and ‘bye, Billy!’ and ‘bye, Victor!’s back, and then they made their slow and slightly awkward way out and shut the door gently behind them. Billy could hear them talking in the hallway at first, and then their voices moved further and further away, and then there was quiet. 

Even Victor kind of sighed, and re-settled in the armchair. “Not the same without them, is it?”

Billy shook his head minutely, his lips pursed tightly together. He hoped Victor didn’t pay too much attention to see his distress.

“Well,” Victor slapped his hands gently on the arms and got up. “I’d better go check in at the nurse’s station and get the sleeping situation here figured out.” He patted Billy’s hand. “I’ll be right back.”

“Okay,” Billy mumbled in reply, and lay back and stared out the window at the sparkling city lights as the door closed behind Victor, too.

___

 

Dinner was some kind of soup and toast again, although at least he got some juice with this one. The night nurse and an orderly brought in a cot for Victor, then the nurse helped Billy get to the bathroom and get ready for bed. She also finally removed the oxygen cannula, which was a huge relief, even though he still had the IV to contend with while sleeping.

Victor wandered back in at some point. “Back in these things yet again,” he joked. Since he’d been wearing his pajamas when they came to the hospital, anyway, he’d just kept them to wear over the second night.

He sat down on the cot and stretched a bit. The nurse finished checking Billy’s monitors and his IV bag. “Well, looks like everything’s ready to go for the night,” she told them with a smile. “You know where the call button is if you need anything. Sleep well, both of you.”

“Thank you,” Victor said, at the same time Billy said, “good night.” The nurse went back out into the hallway and dimmed the lights behind her as she went. 

Victor laid down in the cot and settled in. “Night, Billy.”

“Night,” Billy murmured absently back, and shifted his shoulders in an attempt to get comfortable, sliding down a bit and staring up at the corner of the room. It was dim, but there were still noticeable lights wafting into the room, from outside and from the hallway. It was quiet, but only as quiet as a hospital got, and the soft whirring of machines and hissing of air sounded far louder in the silence. The ache in his side was still there, and he was so tired, but wakeful anyway. 

It was all so weird. In the last month or so, he’d actually found his mom, found out the whole thing was a waste, almost died multiple times, and wound up in a house with five other kids, and foster parents he could actually stand. He couldn’t quite wrap his head around everything.

And he’d been half-kidnapped by a wizard and given superpowers. And that would be weird enough, but there had also been some heavy implication that receiving the powers was some sort of gift, passed on to him for a reason. A purpose.

The Sins were locked up back in the Rock of Eternity now. Hopefully, they would be indefinitely. So what else was he expected to do with his powers? They hadn’t just gone away with the Sins. He remembered uncomfortably the Wizard’s sincerity, his utter conviction as he spoke of one pure in heart to pass his magic on to, for the defense of the world.

Billy wasn’t at all sure he was pure of heart. And he definitely wasn’t sure he was ready to defend the whole world from anything. But he felt an odd need to try and do _something_ worthwhile with what he’d been given. If only he knew what that was. 

Eventually, his eyelids grew heavy, and even despite the noise and the emptiness and the hum of his worried thoughts, he fell asleep.

His head was underwater, and he couldn’t breathe.

That was the foremost problem, of course. The secondmost problem was that he was trying to scream, and he couldn’t. Who would’ve thought the caveat to having superpowers was that if the keyword wasn’t audible, you didn’t get them?

The other problem, the problem he couldn’t believe he had, was that the other kids were up there. He had no idea where, or what the Sins were doing to them. They could be hurting them. They could be killing them. He was the only one who could stand a chance against any of them. He had to save them. He had to at least _try._

But he couldn’t. Because he couldn’t say the stupid ‘shazam,’ and he couldn’t pull his head out of the icy water, because there was a hand clamped on his neck like iron, holding him under with enough force that he couldn’t move. And soon he couldn’t scream, either. His vision was tunneling out and he couldn’t hear and couldn’t think aside from the rising terror that Freddy and Darla and Mary and Pedro and Eugene were all going to die, and it would be all his fault. 

And he woke with a jolt and was gasping desperately, and Victor was beside him and saying something with alarm, and lights were being flicked on and a nurse was there, and there was blood on the sheets. He gasped even harder at the sight of it.

“Billy, hey!” Victor’s voice broke through, and he whipped his head to the side to look at him, chest still heaving, eyes still huge. “You’re okay,” Victor told him evenly. Billy dimly realized Victor’s hand was on his face, holding him steady. “You just popped a stitch waking up like that. Can you breathe for me?”

He tried. It came, but a little short and uneven.

But Victor wasn’t mad. “Good. There you go. Keep trying.”

He did, and while his heart still felt like it was going a mile a minute—and probably was, judging by the frantic beeping that suddenly came back into his ear like a radio being flicked on—he started to calm. Just a little. 

Victor looked relieved and exhausted at once, and finally let go of Billy’s face, though he didn’t let go of his arm. He glanced back at the nurse, who nodded and came closer and gently uncovered his stitches, pulling over a cart. 

Billy lay there and gulped, still faintly shaky from adrenaline. The other kids were fine. They were asleep back at the foster home. Mary had saved him. She’d distracted Sivana long enough he could get his head above water again. He’d felt the precious seconds ticking away while he hung there and gagged violently like he’d never stop. But he’d said ‘Shazam,’ and it had been enough. 

The nurse was quickly and carefully fixing his stitches. He dimly realized it hurt, but he didn’t have the brain capacity to really feel it. The adrenaline high was masking it. He glanced at Victor, who still looked a little shaken. 

“You wanna talk about it?” Victor asked, voice low. His eyes were serious.

Billy bit his lip and shook his head sharply. He didn’t trust his breath or his voice right now. And what would he say? Part of him wished he could tell Victor, but he couldn’t. It would give away that he’d been hunted by some superpowered whack-job because he wanted to steal _his own_ superpowers, and that was a conversation he was not ready to have. What would Victor think of him, if he knew how much danger he’d put his kids in? It made his heart rate spike again, and he heard it on the monitor. 

The nurse finished with the stitches and fixed another square of gauze over them. She glanced cautiously at Victor. “Do you want anything? To help you sleep?” She addressed Billy.

Billy shook his head hurriedly. As tempting as it sounded, he didn’t want to be drugged asleep. 

She nodded without a word. “Alright. Let me know if you need anything else.” She left, dimming the lights and bringing the trash from the medical supplies with her.

Victor raked a hand through his hair. He was perched on the chair beside the bed again. He looked older somehow than usual. 

Billy swallowed. The dark felt close and oppressive rather than dim and warm now, and he didn’t want to go to sleep again, for fear he’d slip right back into the dream, and it would change the end this time. “I-I was having a nightmare,” he gulped. 

“I figured that much,” Victor said, wryly but not unkindly.

“Someone was.” Billy gulped. “Holding my head underwater.”

Victor stiffened. There was a long pause. Billy’s instincts were screaming at him for being so stupid.

“Did that actually happen to you?” Victor asked quietly. 

Billy couldn’t meet Victor’s eyes.

“Who?”

“I don’t remember,” Billy lied. 

“But it did happen.”

Billy nodded, very slightly.

Victor exhaled raggedly. “Geez, Billy.” 

He didn’t say anything more for a long moment. Billy lay there and panicked. Great. Now Victor would think a foster parent had done that to him. Which wasn’t true. Not even any of the foster parents he’d been placed with had been _that_ bad. 

It seemed like Victor was trying to absorb this new knowledge. Billy was a little (a lot) worried about what he’d say when he’d finished.

But Victor simply shifted in the chair and met Billy’s gaze in the dark. “I guess that was probably pretty terrifying for you, wasn’t it?” He asked quietly.

Billy nodded, unable to say anything at first. After a pause, with Billy lying on his back staring blankly up because he couldn’t meet Victor’s eyes, he mumbled, “I thought I was going to die.” 

“Seems a rational assumption,” Victor muttered. He rubbed at his eyes exhaustedly. 

Billy swallowed, and shifted his wrist cautiously.

“You’re probably afraid to go back to sleep, aren’t you?” Victor whispered after a moment.

Billy didn’t say anything, but nodded sharply. 

“I would be, too.” Victor sighed. He settled back in the chair. “So how about I just wait here with you til you fall asleep again, hm?”

Billy glanced at him, unsure.

Victor extended his hand, palm up, and laid it on top of the railing on the bed. After only a moment’s consideration, Billy grasped it.

“Nobody’s gonna hold you underwater while I’m around,” Victor muttered, almost to himself, and Billy couldn’t quite stifle a grin at the protectiveness in the statement, which almost sounded like a threat. 

___

 

The next morning, he finally got discharged. Rosa brought the van to pick him and Victor up, and brought a change of clothes for both of them. A nurse disconnected all the wires and monitors, and he went into the bathroom with the duffle bag Rosa had brought to change.

He glanced in the mirror when he was locked in and alone. His reflection looked a little pale and his face was kind of peaked. He tugged the hospital gown off self-consciously. He didn’t really want to look, but he couldn’t stop himself from glancing at his abdomen. There was a line of stitches, and a bit of swelling around them. It hurt, and looking at it made it hurt worse. But it was kind of fascinating all the same. He was glad to tug a loose tee shirt on and cover it, though. 

He could walk relatively okay, but he tried to keep from putting too much strain on his side, because it did hurt if pulled. And he was a little bit unsteady from being in bed the last day. He was almost grateful they were taking him downstairs in a wheelchair.

Victor was waiting with the nurse when he came back into the room. Rosa had left, presumably to pull the van around. The nurse helped him get settled in the wheelchair, and Victor grabbed the duffle bags of their stuff, and they left the room together. 

Down the endless, repetitive maze of hallways they went, and into the elevator, and down yet another hallway lined with windows to the door. People stared curiously at them as they went. Billy ducked his head and watched the tiles roll away beneath his feet. 

The van was sitting under the overhang outside the automatic doors, rumbling slightly. Exhaust was pouring out the tailpipe, exacerbated by the cold. Billy found himself happy to see even the battered old van again. It was something familiar, at least. And it was an escape.

The shock of cold air when they left the building made him shudder. He was grateful for the loose old hooded sweatshirt Rosa had packed with his clothes. 

The nurse brought the wheelchair up alongside the van and locked the wheels. Victor rolled the back door open. “Alrighty, up we go.” He tossed the duffel bags into the floorboards in the back rows of seats and then turned to help the nurse guide Billy up the step and get him settled in one of the seats. Victor buckled him in, and he felt about four years old. 

“Buenos dias, Billy!” Rosa called from the driver’s seat. “Ready to go home?”

“Oh yeah,” Billy sighed exhaustedly, slumping back against the bench seat. 

“Have a good one, Billy!” The nurse called with a wave. “Wish you the best on recovering!”

“Thank you,” Victor called back, and Billy echoed a tired ‘thanks’ and a wave. When she disappeared back through the doors, Victor rolled the van door shut and climbed into the front seat. “Home we go,” he sighed.

“But first,” Rosa announced. “A treat.”

“Hmm?” Billy mumbled from the row behind them, half-awake.

Rosa smiled back at him and shifted gears. “I promised you a better lunch, didn’t I?”

They went through a drive-thru. Rosa got Billy a banana shake and a double cheeseburger. She assured him he didn’t need to feel obligated to eat the whole thing, and they could save the rest for him at home. He ate half of it in the van, very slowly, and obediently wrapped it back up and passed it to Victor, who was holding the bag. 

They pulled up to the house around 11:30. Rosa hopped out and hurried around to help Billy out of the van while Victor got the bags, and the three of them climbed the mountain of stairs and went inside.

It was startlingly quiet in the house, and Billy was reminded the other kids were at school. He suddenly wondered what he was going to do all day for the rest of the week, and stifled a groan.

For the rest of today, though, he was looking forward to collapsing somewhere and passing out. Just the walk up the stairs had wiped him out. He glanced at the staircase up to his bedroom and heaved a sigh.

“Oh Billy, sweetheart, you don’t have to go all the way upstairs to lie down,” Rosa appeared in the living room in a hurry as if summoned. She went over to the couch and tugged one of the cushioned ottomans over and showed him where a pillow and blanket were sitting ready. “If you want you can lie down right here for a while.”

Under normal circumstances, Billy might tough it out and go upstairs. But he had to take another dose of his antibiotics and pain meds here in a few minutes, and it’d be closer, and he was sore and worn out. So he trudged heavily over and obediently laid down, and Rosa set to work tucking him in and fussing over him. He didn’t even have to toe shoes off because he wasn’t wearing any. He’d left the hospital in a pair of thick socks.

Rosa smoothed a hand over his hair and kissed his forehead. “I’ll be right back with your medicines, mijo,” she told him, and disappeared into the kitchen. 

Victor came in, and leaned against the doorframe for a moment. “It’s good to have you home, champ,” he told Billy, and patted his arm when he walked past. 

Billy barely felt it. He was already half-asleep.

When he woke up, it was because he heard a tv on. It wasn’t loud, but he could hear the buzzing and he could tell he wasn’t alone.

When he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was the side of Freddy’s head. Freddy wasn’t looking at him, but he was sitting at the other end of the couch, with Billy’s feet nearly jammed into his side.

“—What?” Billy croaked softly, confused.

“Oh, hey man.” Freddy said easily, without looking at him. “Bout time you woke up.”

“He needs the rest, Freddy.” Mary’s voice said softly from somewhere down below, and Billy shifted a bit to glance down. Mary was stacked between Darla and Eugene, sitting on the floor in front of the coffee table. Pedro was in the armchair, reading a book and only half-watching Jeopardy. 

Billy rubbed at his eyes with one fist and glanced at the clock. “It’s 7:30 already?” He groaned.

“Yep,” Freddy dragged out the last syllable.

Billy flopped back onto the pillow. “Wake me when it’s next week.”

“Sure thing,” Freddy told him. “Who is Robert Goddard! Come on, are you all uncultured _swine?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again, very wordy and ground-out. I’m tired, you guys. 
> 
> But I do love this story, so I’ll keep grinding. ;)


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The kids explore the Rock of Eternity and Billy contemplates scrapbooking.

One particularly gross and rainy evening in early February, Rosa and Victor announced at dinner that they were planning a parent-date for the next evening. Apparently the stamp and scrapbooking convention was in town. Freddy met Billy’s eyes and rolled his own. 

“So, dinner prep will be Billy and Eugene like planned, and Mary will be in charge until we come home,” Rosa told everyone. “We shouldn’t be any later than 9 o’clock. Does that sound good to everyone?”

“Yes,” all the kids chorused, in varying forms, with varying levels of enthusiasm.

After dinner, when Rosa had gone into the kitchen with Darla and Pedro to wash dishes, Billy side-eyed Victor, who was still finishing his mashed potatoes. “You don’t actually like that stuff that much, do you?”

“What, scrapbooking?” Victor asked. “It’s actually kind of fun. I don’t do it obsessively, but I’ve got a couple. I’ll show you sometime. It’s just making cool designs with paper and ink and sticking stuff into a book. Don’t see anything wrong with that.” He took a swig of milk. “I’m not in love with it. But I am in love with her, so.” He shrugged ruefully at Billy. “I try to love it for a few hours or so. It won’t hurt me.”

With that, he got up and took his plate into the kitchen. Billy sat at the table for a moment, and eventually got up and helped carry a couple of the bowls of sides back in to put leftovers away. 

Eugene wanted to make some sort of meaty dish, so he banged around the kitchen making a marinade while Billy seasoned the chicken and chopped onions and peppers. 

After the meal prep was done, and the kids were in line outside the bathroom waiting to brush their teeth and get ready for bed, Freddy whisper-shouted, “You know what we should do tomorrow?”

Heads turned wearily in his direction. “What?” Mary asked.

“We should explore our lair, since Rosa and Victor won’t be home for a while!”

“That’s...actually not a bad idea.” Billy said.

“Awesome!” Eugene pumped his fists in the air.

“We should be careful.” Mary cautioned. “Remember the alligator people in that one door? We don’t have any idea what all’s in there, or how dangerous it is…”

“All the more important to find out.” Pedro remarked. “So we’ll know for sure.” 

The bathroom door opened, and Darla stepped out, hair wrapped pristinely in a towel. She glanced around at everyone, confused. “What about alligators?” 

___

 

“We don’t technically even know how to get back into the lair, do we?” Mary asked the next evening, as they were finishing dinner.

“It’s actually called the Rock of Eternity,” Billy threw in, knocking back some of his juice. When he noticed everyone staring at him, he shrugged. “What? I’m just telling you what the wizard told me.”

“How did you even meet the wizard?” Mary asked.

“Yeah, and where is he now?” Eugene added. 

“Well, uh. I’m pretty sure he, uh. Died? I think?” Billy replied uncomfortably.

“What!?” The other kids exploded.

“I don’t know! He just kind of….crumbled into dust? I didn’t stick around to find out what was going on.” Billy rubbed his face, trying not to dwell on the memory, or on the other kids’ alarm.

“That’s terrible!” Mary exclaimed.

“The poor wizard,” Darla said, upset.

“Now  _ wait _ a second, let’s not get too attached to the creepy wizard I met  _ once _ who technically kidnapped me, okay?” Billy tried to downplay. “I’m sure he was like, 80 centuries old or something, he’d probably been looking forward to a break. What’s important is, when I got there the first time, everyone else on the subway disappeared and the windows started fogging and freezing over, and then the words on the display started warping.”

“Warping into what?” Mary asked.

Billy shrugged. “I dunno. Symbols. Magic, I guess.”

“Symbols,” Mary said. “Symbols like the ones on the closet door?”

Everyone was huddled around the door to the storage closet in seconds. “See?” Mary pointed to the faded-looking notches in the wood, almost looking like they’d been burned into it. 

“That’s gotta be it,” Freddy said excitedly. “Unless anybody’s taken up some form of ancient Persian calligraphy and hasn’t said anything about it—“

“So, do we just replicate it?” Mary asked. 

“Who’s best at drawing stuff?” Billy started to ask, but was interrupted when Freddy elbowed in front of him and yanked a silver sharpie from somewhere on his person. “Allow the expert to work,” he announced, and set to scribbling passionately across the door. 

“I hope it  _ does _ work, because if not we’re gonna have to explain the evil-looking sharpie scrawl all over the closet door, since none of us is currently three-years-old,” Eugene observed sardonically. Not two seconds after his sentence ended, there was a sharp noise and a bright, angled light shot from the symbols Freddy had drawn on the door. Freddy startled and reflexively threw his sharpie in the air. It bounced off Billy’s head on its way down.

“Back, everybody!” Mary hurriedly pulled any remaining kids a safe distance back from the door. Darla had already ran around the group and huddled behind Pedro, and Billy had scrambled back and half-dragged Freddy. They stood there in a huddle and watched as the symbols lit up bright enough to be near-impossible to look at, and blinding light shot out of the crack underneath the door. After a moment, the humming dwindled down and the light faded slightly. Mary hesitantly stepped forward and gently grasped the door handle, and swung it open. 

The inside of the closet was replaced with a huge, dark space, and cool, wet air wafted out into the house.

Mary glanced back at them, her eyes showing her stifled awe mixed with a bit of hysterical humor. “Better get your jackets before we go in.” 

___

 

They lined up single file and marched their little procession into the door, leaving one of Victor’s snowboots in the doorway to hold it open. Inside was the same as it had been the last few times Billy had been there, and he shivered a bit and walked faster to keep up with Mary. 

It was beginning to be almost familiar enough he could find his way, he thought. The door had opened onto one of the terrifying catwalks leading further in toward the central chamber, and Mary was leading them to the brighter, larger room ahead.

They came out into the chamber, and Billy glanced around. The empty thrones sat in their semi-circle, the wall to the right of the throne had a chunk torn out of it and a pile of rubble on the floor from where he’d thrown Sivana, and the middle of the approach down the hall—

And now that Billy looked closely, he could see the pile of dust that was all that was left of the wizard Shazam, in a little unobtrusive heap on the floor. 

He pointed at it. “There’s the wizard,” he told Mary, a bit shakily. Usually he tried not to be such a wuss, but this entire situation freaked him out and it just seemed...wrong to talk so casually about what was left of—well, if not a human...a  _ person.  _

Mary saw it, and blanched very slightly. But she glanced back at the others, who had overheard and were paused and exchanging varied glances. “Pedro,” she said. “Could you and Eugene run back to the house and get a couple sheets of paper and that old breadbox Rosa bought me?”

And with the two sheets of paper, Mary and Billy carefully swept the little pile of ashes up, on their hands and knees on the stone floor. 

“...Try not to inhale?” Freddy warned hesitantly, and winced when he got matching scowls from Mary and Billy and horrified looks from the others. When Billy had finished scooting the ashes onto Mary’s sheet of paper, he got the old wooden breadbox and set it on the floor and opened it up. Mary gently poured the ashes inside and Billy shut the lid. He handed over a swiss army knife to Freddy, who obediently sat down next to the box when Billy sat it securely on the steps up to the throne and clumsily carved out a notation that read: HERE LIES THE WIZARD SHAZAM. ???-2019

When he was done, he folded the knife back up and awkwardly handed it back to Billy. He stood and backed away from the box a bit more quickly than was necessary, and merged back into the huddle of his siblings.

“Should we say something?” Billy half-whispered, because it had gotten quiet. The other kids glanced at each other, and then automatically looked up at Mary. She looked nervous, but squared her shoulders and cleared her throat. It echoed in the cavernous space. “For I know that my Redeemer lives,” she recited softly, in a different, more solemn tone than she usually spoke in,  “And He shall stand at last on the earth.

And after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God,

Whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.” 

Billy blinked. The words were formal, and sounded about as wacky as anything the wizard had said, but somehow there was something beneath it that was anything but solemn. He knew it had to be from the Bible, but he hadn’t read it much (at all), and didn’t know which part. He’d stuffed his hands in his pockets earlier, and now just stood with them there, quiet with the others.

Mary glanced at him. “Job,” she told him.

“Oh.” He said. He didn’t know who that was, either. 

There was another long pause. “Anyway!” Freddy said. “Our fond farewells to the wizard, may he rest in peace in that big old scary cave up in the sky,  _ can we move on now? _ Actually,” and he paused, looking bewildered. “For all I know,  _ this _ big old scary rock might be up in the sky!”

Mary had looked like she was about to scold Freddy, but her face took on a startled expression, too. “...That’s a scary thought,” she remarked, a little shakily. 

“Here’s another scary thought,” Eugene said seriously. “That creepy flying dude was the one who put the symbols in the door in the first place. What’s to stop him from coming back in here as soon as he gets something to write with?”

Everyone blanched. Freddy, Mary, and Billy looked at each other.

“First order of business is finding any info about this place,” Mary ordered.

The kids set to work picking over the throne room for anything that might have information about the Rock of Eternity, or the Wizard, or anything else of use. 

“I found a picture!” Darla said urgently, pointing to the huge mural on one wall of the throne room.

“Yeah, thanks, Darla.” Billy told her, biting back the sarcasm.

“You’re welcome,” she said calmly, and folded her arms behind her back as she stood on her tiptoes and squinted through her glasses at the mural.

Billy studied it, too. Now that she mentioned it, he really hadn’t looked at it too closely before. It was of what was presumably the seven Consular Wizards. Three women and four men. One of which was clearly the wizard Shazam, recognizable even though he was far younger. With his siblings, Billy realized with a wince.  _ I am all that remains, _ he’d said. 

“I found a book!” Freddy yelled from somewhere far enough off that it echoed. His voice came closer, along with tapping. “I’d say it’s a spellbook, but it looks like it’s all just lunch spells.”

“What?” Mary asked, going over to meet Freddy from where she’d been studying the contents of some dusty wooden chest. Freddy showed her the open book. The page had an illustration of a leg of goose on it. 

“Oookay,” Mary said. “Does it have a glossary?”

Freddy obediently flipped to the back. “It’s not in English,” he said, pulling the huge book with some difficulty close to his face. “I don’t know  _ what _ language this is.” 

Mary took the book when Freddy handed it over. “If only we had some way to translate it,” she said.

Billy suddenly thought of what the wizard had said, ‘the wisdom of Solomon.’ “Hey,” he called.

Mary looked up. 

“Try transforming. See if you can read it then.”

Mary seemed to consider this. “Shazam?” She said after a second, and Freddy recoiled from the lightning bolt. The dust cleared, and Mary was still standing there, still holding the book. She waved it around to blow the smoke away, and cracked it open again. The twisted, unfamiliar letters shifted into something she found she could actually understand. “It worked!” She said excitedly. 

Darla clapped her hands, and Billy pumped his fist. 

“Alright, let’s see.  _ ‘Spells For The Alleviation of Indigestion.’”  _ Mary made a face. “Ew.  _ ‘Spells For The Hampering Of Irritations.’ ‘Spells For The Preservation Of Good.’ ‘Spells For The Repellancy/Containment Of Evil.’  _ Ah!  _ ‘Spells For Security Of Important Places.’” _

“Can we put one on the refrigerator?” Eugene asked excitedly. 

“No,” Mary said firmly, and bent over the spellbook. “Let’s see.” She flipped rapidly through a few pages.  _ “‘A Spell For The Re-arrangement Of Symbols Guarding The Rock Of Eternity.” _

“Like, uh. Changing the lock?” Freddy asked, when Mary glanced up at him blankly. 

She shrugged. “I guess so.” She glanced back down. “Let’s see if I can read it.” She said a long string of consonants and syllables that had Darla making a confused face and Freddy choking back laughter on how it sounded like noises Daffy Duck would make when frustrated. But when she finished, there was an otherworldly hum, and letters of fire manifested hovering in the air in front of her, between her and Freddy.

“Holy shit!” Freddy exclaimed. 

Mary laughed nervously. “Uh,” she said. “Any suggestions for different symbols?”

“Find one that looks like an emoji!” Eugene yelled. “Crusty-Old-Dude will never know what  _ that _ is!”

“No,” Freddy groaned, facepalming. 

“I’m just gonna select one at random,” Mary said dryly, and did so. The fiery letters glowed brighter, and then shot up into the air. They stopped right before the roof of the chamber and exploded into a cloud of fiery sparks, which spread out through the whole cave at a startling speed. The kids ducked instinctively, but when the sparks did envelop them, they didn’t burn or sting, or do anything aside from drift past them. 

“Well,” Mary said after it had died down, brushing the sleeves of her suit off, as though magic dust might’ve gotten on them. “I guess that takes care of that problem.”

“Guys!” Eugene shrieked from the other end of the cavern. “Pedro found the Wizard’s hairbrush!”

“Gross!” Freddy said excitedly, and set off in a hurry to gawk along with Billy and Darla.

Mary rolled her eyes. “Shazam,” she said, and changed back.

___

 

They spent hours and hours combing through the cave, exploring and playing hide-and-seek. Eventually they wound up sitting and talking.

Mary glanced at her watch. “It’s getting on to nine,” she said. She stood up off the steps leading up to the thrones. “We should probably be heading back.”

They made their way back to the door they’d left open.

It was gone, and Victor’s snow boot was sitting on the floor. Pedro shuffled over and picked it up.

“Oh well.” Mary said. “At least we know how to get out, now.”

Billy shut his eyes along with the others, and pictured the quiet living room in the foster house on a school evening, cozily cluttered and warm, dimly lit against the soft darkness outside.

And when he opened his eyes again, he was standing there in the living room, and he was too warm in his winter jacket, and the other kids blinked back at him, disoriented and a little taken-aback by the return to the mundane safety of the house. Pedro set Victor’s boot down next to its mate beside the coffee table. 

“I think some hot chocolate sounds good,” Mary said, taking her jacket off and heading toward the kitchen. “What do you all think?”

Normally there would be cheers. But everyone was in a thoughtful mood, and so only a few hums replied to Mary’s offer. 

___

 

Victor and Rosa trudged back through the front door a half-hour later, rosy cheeked and out of breath, and wafting cold. “Hola, ninos!” Rosa called happily, and hurried around giving kisses on the hair or cheek to the kids, hands full of bags. 

“Did you have a good time?” Mary asked. 

“Si!” Rosa nodded enthusiastically, and excitedly brandished her shopping bags. “I got enough new papers to add to the book!”

“How about you, Victor?” Freddy asked dryly.

Victor shrugged with a smile. “It was fun. We split a cheesesteak. That was a highlight.”

Rosa made a face at him before smiling again, and Victor kind of looked at her like he thought  _ she _ was the highlight. It gave Billy a weird feeling in his stomach.

After a bit, when Rosa had gone into the living room with Mary and Darla, chattering about contact paper, Billy made his way over to Victor. “Were you serious when you said you enjoyed scrapbooking?”

Victor, who’d been nursing a glass of milk at the table, straightened. “Hmm? Yeah, actually. Now that I think about it,” he swallowed the little bit that was left and set the empty glass gently in the sink. “I did say I’d show you, didn’t I?”

He led Billy upstairs and into his and Rosa’s bedroom. Billy followed a bit hesitantly when he switched the lights on. He’d never been in their room before.

Well, whatever he’d been expecting in a married couple’s bedroom, this wasn’t it. It was just a plain old room, with soft blue paint on the walls, and a mishmash of furniture. A photo hung over the bed of Rosa and Victor sitting on a blanket with the five other kids. Billy glanced at it curiously before sitting down on the bedspread when Victor patted it and ducked down to pull a box from underneath the bed. 

He came back up with a long, flat book. “Here,” he said, and handed it to Billy.

Billy accepted it uncertainly, and cautiously cracked it open.

The first page was older photos, clearly of Victor and Rosa as teenagers. There was a candid of the two of them laughing their heads off about something, crammed into some old, very tacky couch. There was a wedding photo, and a new car photo. There were movie tickets and stickers, and a snippet of their approval letter to run a foster home. 

The next page was about Mary. There was a baby photo of her, to Billy’s surprise. She was tiny and dark-haired, with big dark eyes that reflected the camera flash, in a Big Bird tee shirt and tiny floral pants. There was a picture of her in middle school, holding up a poster she’d drawn. There was what he assumed was her first photo with Victor and Rosa. She was in her early teens, and she wasn’t smiling. It looked so weird on her that he stared, and Victor laughed softly.

“Yep, Mary wasn’t...exactly enthusiastic when she first came here.” His expression was a mix between sad and fond as he looked at the picture, too. “It took her a while to warm up.”

There was a page for Pedro, and a page for Freddy and Eugene and Darla. It wasn’t in age order; it was in order of when they came to the foster home. So Eugene was actually a little bit before Freddy. Darla had apparently been there the second-longest; she looked just barely above a toddler in her first picture. 

Billy flipped the page, and blinked at a photo of himself. It must’ve been sent to Victor and Rosa by his social worker, he guessed. It wasn’t especially recent, but recent enough that he looked similar. And it had been taken from a distance, so he hadn’t made an expressionless face for the camera. He was sitting at a collapsible table in a group home with a bowl of chili, glancing off someplace away from the camera. The photo of him and Freddy at Christmas was newly-pasted in the margin. 

Those, however, were the only two photos. So far. 

The thought made him a little breathless. So far. 

“Darla doesn’t have any good baby pictures, either.” Victor told him quietly. “She was abandoned a few days after she was born. All the photos were taken by the police department and social services, and I don’t like looking at them. It’s too sad.” 

Billy swallowed. He gently shut the book and handed it back to Victor.

___

 

That night, Billy lay awake in bed, staring into space and listening to the heater run above Freddy’s snuffly breathing and the other sounds of the house at night. He couldn’t quite take his mind off the scrapbook with him in it. It was pretty clear from looking at it that Victor had pasted his photo in as soon as he’d found out Billy was definitively being placed with them. 

He thought about his compass again, and what he could remember about that day—or thought he remembered. He remembered being cold. He remembered the panic when he realized he couldn’t find his mom anywhere. He remembered the nice police officer draping a blanket over him and patting his shoulder. He remembered the chatter on the radio in the background. And he remembered how it hadn’t even occurred to him to begin to panic or be devastated when the police lead him off. Because he didn’t know what it meant. He didn’t realize he wasn’t going home with his mom, and never would again. 

He swallowed hard. His throat burned and his eyes stung. He rolled onto his side and pulled his covers tight around himself.

Why had she done it? He knew why. He was sure she’d been scared. More than a little overwhelmed and exhausted. Frustrated with him, probably. Two was a notorious age. But somehow he was still angry, even though he knew he shouldn’t be. Angry and  _ hurt _ , beyond explanation. 

He didn’t even remember anything before that. Didn’t remember where he lived. Who else he knew besides her, if anyone. Did he have grandparents? Cousins? He assumed he didn’t have any siblings.  _ Hopefully _ , he realized with a wince, thinking of the yelling he’d heard in those ramshackle apartments. It was horrible to think about. Had anyone even  _ noticed _ he was gone? Had any neighbors thought it was weird that she’d  had a toddler son, and then didn’t? Had she moved in a hurry to avoid any questions? Hadn’t any doctors asked what happened to him? Had anyone even  _ known _ to ask? 

He sat up in the dark and leaned over, fumbling around on the bookshelf beside the bed for his notebook. His phone was stuffed under his pillow, and he pulled the covers over his head and flicked it on.

Eugene had finished the entry in his journal by copying it by hand off his piece of paper. His handwriting was really blocky and sloppy, but the phone number, at least, was legible. And by the number, it was a cell and not a landline. 

Billy started to type in a text, but paused. What if it was a shared phone? He might be angry at his mother, but he didn’t want to get her hurt, and he didn’t particularly want to come under her boyfriend (or whatever he was)’s scrutiny, either. But eventually, determination got the better of him and he sent three messages off. 

_ Hi. This is Billy. I’m sorry to bother you again.  _

_ If you can’t or don’t want to, don’t worry about it. Do you have any pictures of me when I was a baby? _

_ It would just. Be nice to have them, if you do. Thanks. _

He shut his phone off and stuffed it back under his pillow. He laid his head down and shut his eyes tight and almost prayed she didn’t answer. 

___

 

The next morning, he had no notifications on his phone when he woke up. He halfway breathed a sigh of relief, and got up and wandered into the line for the bathroom behind a disheveled Freddy, eager to go to school and forget about the whole dumb idea.

Which was why he was so taken off-guard when he pulled his phone from his locker at recess and saw the text from a non-contact that said,  _ Yes, _ and then,  _ I can meet you to drop them off. _

He blinked, nervousness coming to fore now that he was faced with actually seeing her again, let alone meeting her in public somewhere. Rosa and Victor probably wouldn’t approve. He didn’t know how he’d do it. 

He glanced around the hallway like someone would have been reading over his shoulder and already shutting him down. As he did, his eyes lit on Freddy coming down the hall.

___

 

“I don’t like this,” Freddy said tensely, glancing around the bus nervously.

“Me neither, if I’m honest.” Billy muttered. They’d snuck out of the house after supper, and walked to the nearest bus stop, to take it to the nearest subway station. It was still winter, so it was dark already, and the location they were meeting at was a McDonalds or something in the same borough as his mom’s apartment building. 

“We’re gonna be so grounded,” Freddy groused, still double-taking every three seconds. It would’ve been funny under other circumstances, but at the moment Billy just found it grating. Probably because this whole thing was his idea. 

“Just relax, will you? Nobody’s gonna bother us on this bus.”

Freddy side-eyed him. “How do you know?”

Billy rolled his eyes. “Ridden it dozens of times myself.” He slouched back in his seat, hands in his pockets, and stared out the window. 

“Where’d you get the money?” Freddy asked, curious.

Billy shrugged. “Picked it up off the streets. People gave it to me, sometimes.” He deliberately avoided looking at Freddy. “Stole some of it.”

“What?” Freddy asked, shocked.

“Not a ton! And not from anyone who wouldn’t be able to eat without it!” Billy said defensively. 

“Wow,” Freddy said, with a half-hysterical chuckle, “you really were a mini-edgelord, weren’t you?”

Billy glanced flatly at him, and Freddy squirmed, tucking his cane down in the seat beside him, out of sight. “I’m sorry, okay?” He mumbled. “It’s just…I don’t like being. Out. For a reason. Makes me feel all exposed, and I don’t like it.” He flicked his wrist sharply around the cane. “I don’t like going into danger. Cause I can’t run.”

Billy sighed. “I’m sorry, too.” He said tiredly. “I don’t know why I did this.”

Freddy shrugged. “It’s not wrong to want at least some piece of your early childhood. And you know where to go to get it and who to ask. That’s better than a lot of people get.” 

Billy glanced at the younger boy curiously. “Do you have that?”

Freddy looked away. “Not really,” he said tightly. 

Billy swallowed uncomfortably, and dropped the subject. 

The bus came to their stop, and the two of them got up and made their way off in the mild cluster of other people. They stepped down onto the sidewalk. Down the block from the bus stop was a McDonalds built into a gas station and convenience store. They started walking toward it.

“I’m thinking we should go with the excuse that we were taken hostage,” Freddy said apropos of nothing, out of breath. 

“By whom?” Billy asked, bemused.

“What do I look like, the United States government?” Freddy demanded, mock-offended. “I’m not an official-excuse-maker!”

Billy pulled the door open when they got to the building, and Freddy limped in. Billy slipped in behind him. 

Inside was crowded with disheveled and somewhat shady-looking people. Freddy sort of cowered beneath his jacket and hat, and headed off towards the nearest out-of-sight corner. Billy followed him silently, glancing around. 

Freddy sat down at a four-seat table with spinning chairs, and Billy took the seat across from him. A homeless guy was in the booth beside them, holding a small coffee between twitching fingers. 

“What if she doesn’t even show up?” Freddy stage-whispered, still looking around like he expected to be attacked any second. 

“Why would she even go to the trouble of replying?” Billy asked, only mildly annoyed, and more worried Freddy was right. 

“I don’t know, man. She abandoned you. Wouldn’t shock me if she’s not  _ entirely _ reliable.” The bluntness of Freddy’s reply was kind of shocking, but Billy had heard the undertone of resentment beneath it.

“You hate her,” he said, realizing it for the first time.

Freddy looked guiltily at the grimy floor. “I don’t  _ hate _ her. I just...don’t like her very much, from what I’ve heard.” 

Billy was dumfounded, and Freddy must have been able to tell, because he rolled his eyes and set his free hand on the table.

“Look, she’s not  _ my _ mom, so  _ I _ don’t have any big hopes or affection invested in her, okay? All I know about her is that she hurt you. Forgive me if I’m not exactly excited to meet people who’ve hurt my family, especially as bad as she hurt you.”

“She.” Billy was confused. “She didn’t hurt me  _ that _ badly.” How  _ could _ she hurt him badly? He’d barely been around her a few years.

“Ohhh yes, she did,” Freddy said, dead serious and half-upset. “Neglect is still abuse. No matter how bad a situation it was. You didn’t deserve to be abandoned, and it was wrong for her to do. Even if it wound up resulting in some good. Period. Exclamation mark.” Freddy sat back and didn’t say anything else. Billy was still too stunned to make up for the gap in conversation. They sat in silence while buzzers rang in the kitchen and the employees were calling orders and instructions to each other and people were ordering and chatting. 

Billy almost jumped when his phone buzzed.  _ Be there in a couple minutes. _

He glanced up. “She  _ says _ she’ll be here in a couple minutes.” 

One of Freddy’s eyebrows quirked up. “We’ll see,” was all he said. 

Billy’s stomach growled. He kind of wished they hadn’t blown through all the money they’d gotten from the ATM so fast. Oh well. Just another stupid, not-thought-out decision in a long line of them. 

The two of them sort of zoned out into their own thoughts, and so were both startled when someone sat down at the table with them.

“Sorry I’m late,” Marilyn said, breath short with cold wafting off her. She was bundled up in a ratty looking winter coat over a convenience store uniform, and was carrying a shoebox wrapped in a grocery bag tight to her chest, like someone might grab it from her any second. “Had to get to the bank to get this out before it closed.”

She handed the heavy box over to Billy, who belatedly took it clumsily. “There wasn’t a ton, but that’s what I have,” she told him. “The really early stuff was disposable film. The rest is copies of digital.” 

She looked up, and seemed to see Freddy for the first time. “Oh. Hi.” She sounded a bit hesitant. She glanced at Billy. “Who’s this?” 

“My foster brother,” Billy half-stammered. “Uh, Freddy.”

“Oh.” She said again, and looked closer at him. Freddy squirmed a little bit under the attention, but folded his hands in his lap and kept his posture. 

“I’m, uh, Marilyn.” She said, after a minute. “I’m, uh.” She pointed at Billy. “His, er. Mother.”

“I know.” Freddy said. He was a bit less tight-voiced than Billy was expecting him to be. Which was a relief. 

“Anyway, you’re doing alright?” She turned to Billy.

“Uh.” Billy said, taken unprepared by rhe question. “I guess…”

“He just had his appendix out.” Freddy flatly put in—unnecessarily, Billy thought. “A couple weeks ago.” 

“What?” Suddenly she was looking at him more urgently, and Billy flushed. “I’m fine now,” he said awkwardly. “I had surgery and I finished my antibiotics.” 

She still looked worried, with a pinched-up expression on an already-stressed face. “It was a little scary,” Billy admitted quietly, “but my foster family took good care of me and I should be fine now.” 

“Well. That’s, er. That’s good.” She said, seeming to reel herself back in. She glanced around the restaurant, then dug into her handbag. “Are you boys hungry?”

They started to hem and haw, but she drew out a $10 bill and said, “I had this ready to get something for myself, anyway, so if you’d like some, just help yourself.”

She got two large fries, and the three of them sat at the table and ate them. Freddy and Billy were splitting one and Marilyn had the other. Billy got them some ketchup in a soda lid since they were out of cups, and he and Freddy tore through theirs. Marilyn watched them silently while she ate some of hers, and when they got theirs empty, she offered them the rest of hers. Freddy and Billy tried to decline, but she told them, “No, that was plenty for me and you know they don’t reheat well.” So they finished up the rest of that, too. Billy tried to stifle the worried thought that part of why she’d let them eat it was to get rid of the evidence she’d bought anything for herself. She was going home to someone she was  _ that _ afraid of after this. 

They threw away their trash, and the three of them wandered over towards the door.

“Thank you for doing this,” Billy told her sincerely, carrying the bag with the heavy box in it over his shoulder.

Marilyn shrugged, looking uncomfortable. “Least I could do.” She said. She met his eyes. “The absolute least.” 

Billy swallowed dryly and nodded, eyes downcast. It wasn’t exactly an apology, but it was close. 

Freddy waved when they got to the door. “Bye, Ms. Billy’s-Mom,” he told her. “Thanks for the fries.”

That made her smile hesitantly, and Billy felt something satisfied in him. Freddy could even get on  _ her _ good side. “You’re welcome.” She glanced out the windows carefully. “You boys had better go. Your bus will be here in a couple minutes.”

“What about you?” Billy asked. 

“I’m waiting for one that goes the other way,” she told him not unkindly, with a thin smile. “You go ahead, and be careful, the both of you.”

So Billy nodded to her, and turned and pushed the door open, and Freddy hurried out behind him. Billy looked back over his shoulder at her standing there in the window, the lit-up interior behind her casting her in a stark silhouette. 

Sure enough, the bus was rumbling up to the stop just as they reached it, and they climbed on. They sat down next to each other, and Billy set the box on his lap and held it securely. 

Billy’s phone buzzed. He tugged it out of his jacket pocket. It was a text from Victor.  _ Where are you? _

He swallowed. He typed out,  _ On the bus. Will be back within twenty minutes. _

He sent it, and then added,  _ I’ll explain when I get home. _

Freddy glanced over at the phone and read the texts, and glanced at Billy nervously. There was a minute’s delay before Victor’s reply popped up.  _ Alright. We’ll be waiting for you.  _

___

 

Billy and Freddy trudged up the steps to the lit-up house, and Billy rang the doorbell. The door opened almost immediately, and Victor was standing in it.

Billy looked downcast, and Freddy didn’t look too pleased with himself, either. “Can we come in?” Billy asked.

Victor opened the door for them, and shut it after they were in. “So, Billy.” He folded his arms. “What was this all about?”

Billy toed his boots off and carried the bag into the living room. The dining room table was relatively empty and he set the bag down with a heavy thump. Rosa, who was on a laptop at the table, looked up sharply, startled.

“I, uh.” Billy sat down quietly, subdued, and pulled the bag off the box. “I asked my. My mom if she had any baby pictures of me.”

Victor’s entire posture softened. “Oh,” he said quietly. 

Billy glanced at the shoebox. It was old and weathered, and the cardboard on the lid was soft and flimsy when he picked it up.

The box was full of a mess of papers and photographs. Billy stared at them. Rosa got up from her chair and hurried over to duck over his shoulder and look them over herself. She reached in and gently shifted one of the papers off the top of a stack of photographs. “Oh, mijo.” She said softly. 

There were a bunch of disposable camera film photos of him, clearly only a week old or so. He had a tiny scattering of brown hair on the crown of his head and a little upturned nose. There was a photo of his mom holding him on her chest at the hospital. She wasn’t looking at the camera, she was looking at him. He wondered when that had changed, or whether it had always been displayed and not felt. 

There was a photo of him asleep in a carseat on an apartment floor. There was a photo of him clutching a pot and asleep on the kitchen floor. Generally he just seemed to be asleep.

There was one photo he saw, as Rosa picked some of them up and stacked them neatly on the table, of him and his mom. He was a little older, and his mom was holding him and smiling at the camera. And he was smiling, too, a toothless baby smile. 

There was a photo of him in a high chair on his first birthday. He had a chocolate cupcake with a candle on the tray in front of him. The next picture, his face and hands were completely covered in cake. 

He was dimly aware that Victor and Freddy had joined the little huddle of them gawking at the photos, but was too distracted to be too bothered by it. He picked up a photo stuffed in the corner. It was a photo showing a dark-haired man holding him against his shoulder.

Freddy inhaled quietly, and Rosa gently reached down and tilted the photo in Billy’s grasp to get a better look at it. “Your papá, I’m guessing?” She said softly. 

Billy studied what little was visible of the man’s face manically. He didn’t look super old. He looked pretty young, actually. Nothing especially unique. Close-cut brown hair. Maybe sort of tall. Not particularly heavy, not particularly thin. A broad hand with long fingers and broken nails holding the baby against his shoulder. 

At least he didn’t have to worry that his mother had gotten with a way older man, or been hurt by one. But this created more questions than it answered. Had they ever been on good terms, his mom and dad? What had happened to change that? Did his dad still love him? Did he ever think about him? Would he ever be able to...to take him back? Would he ever  _ want _ to? 

Based on Rosa and Victor—and Freddy’s—facial expressions, the same question was on their minds, too. Freddy looked upset. Rosa and Victor looked concerned. 

Billy cleared his throat. “I, uh.” He said, a bit hoarsely. He picked up one of the photos, one that was of him staring blankly up at the camera, lying on the floor on a blanket, in an airplane sleeper. He handed it to Victor. “I just wanted you guys to, uh. Have one of me.” 

Victor glanced at the photo. Then he set it down gently on the tabletop and got down on one knee beside the chair and hugged Billy. Rosa leaned down and hugged him, too. 

___

 

That night, Billy and Freddy were both lying awake in the dark.

“Your mom wasn’t like I expected.” Freddy said softly, out of nowhere.

“Yeah.” Billy sighed, lost in thought, himself. 

After a beat, he sat up on his elbow and glanced down. “What were you expecting her to be like?” He asked. 

Freddy met his gaze for a moment before breaking eye contact. “Less...sad.” He said simply. 

Billy laid back and stared up at the ceiling again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> special thanks to KarToon12 for the idea for the start of this chapter because I’ll be honest, I was stuck on what to do next lol.


End file.
